Matt Souden

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Mac Special Key Game

Dec 04 2013

I’ve gone years not getting these silly icons into muscle memory:

Mac_Special_keys

Still sometimes when it’s far too long at work I’ll have to re-parse the option key symbol by process of elimination when I see it in docs.

I might be best described as an average “power-user” of keyboard shortcuts. Cmd-C, X, V, N, S, and A are in my bones. Alt-tab too, but I use a hot-corner for switching between open windows – which is probably my weakest workflow point, until I get sick of it and go look it up. I still fumble to remember opt-cmd-arrow for tab navigation.

Bouncing between linux and mac doesn’t help either, but I don’t do that much any more, thankfully.

A friend of mine – a software engineer who spends his days happiest in an IDE – has repeatedly been given macs by employers only to always go back to linux. I suspect it’s because of keyboard shortcuts. One day I’ll ask him. He once told me that part of developing his workflow includes seeing how little he can touch his mouse/trackpad- which makes a lot of sense for true code ninjas.

I’ve always wondered – is it actually harder to do more with just the keyboard on a mac than with Linux? I mean setting aside the CLI, of course – is Linux really better/faster/more flexible with the keyboard than OsX? Not trying to pick a linux desktop fight or anything, just a digression.

More info about keyboard shortcuts here: http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/special-key-symbols.html

PS – I would love to find an app that levels up my shortcut key combinations. Add in a little social-badge component for the competitive developer bros, modules/levels for OsX, Xcode, and Sublime Text, etc, etc, and this could be an interesting niche game that hones mad skillz.

Just sayin…

Topics: mac, Original Content

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