Nobody has time to memorize a complete list of web browser keyboard shortcuts, and really, why should they? I only know a handful of web browser keyboard shortcuts, myself, and I probably use the same five shortcuts a hundred times a day. But not everyone knows about these five essential
One of the quickest ways to increase your productivity on the computer is to go commando: stop using the mouse. When you stop relying on the mouse for everything, you’re forced to learn the keyboard shortcuts. Jeremy Miller calls this the first step to coding faster. I agree.
Keyboard
The standard login form is everywhere. It’s unavoidable. And it’s a giant pain in the butt.
As much as we see login forms every day, you’d think we would have mastered them by now. Unfortunately, we haven’t. Here’s what I’ve observed users doing, over
Everyone knows how to use the arrow keys to navigate within textboxes. But not many people know there are a slew of handy keyboard shortcuts for editing text in textboxes. And these keyboard shortcuts work everywhere, even in the most basic input areas – including vanilla HTML forms, such as the
All modern browsers have extensive keyboard shortcuts:
* Internet Explorer
* Firefox
* Chrome
* Safari
I tested every shortcut, and here’s my list of keyboard shortcuts that work in all browsers – or, for the rare keyboard shortcuts I found especially useful, those that work in at least two of the above browsers.
I constantly rename variables. It’s probably the single most frequent refactoring activity I do. And that’s why I love Visual Studio 2005’s built-in Smart Tags feature.
If you’re not familiar with smart tags, check out K. Scott Allen’s post; he has some nice screenshots illustrating
I finally had time to improve my Visual Studio .NET keyboard shortcut summary macro. Instead of writing HTML to the console,* it now creates a HTML file in your user documents folder, and navigates the IDE to the created file:
Download the Keyboard Shortcut Summary Macro (2kb ZIP)
The advantage
When I see people using the default, crappy Windows ALT+TAB task switching behavior, I experience physical pain.
TaskSwitchXP is completely free and so much better. It’s super small, totally elegant, lightning fast, and generally a massive improvement in task switching functionality. Friends don’t let friends suffer through
I’m sure everyone knows that the Windows key brings up the Start Menu, but there are also a bunch of standard Windows key shortcuts built into Windows:
Set focus to first tray icon
Show Desktop
Windows Explorer
Find Files or Folders (aka Search)
Minimize All windows
Undo minimize all
I’ve been trying to improve my use of keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio .NET. Here are the ones I use most often, what I consider my “core” keyboard shortcuts:
Go to declaration
F12
Debug: step over
F10
Debug: run to cursor
ctrl + F10
Debug: step into
F11
Debug: step
Like Scott Hanselman, I view the mouse as an optional computer accessory.* Manly coders love the smell of compilation in the morning and we know that speed = keyboard. A mouse? C’mon. That’s so teenage girls can pick emoticons in AOL Instant Messenger. And for flash “developers.” Us tough