Lightning Keys

LightningKeys.md

Lightning Keys (⚡️⌨)

Note: Keys specific to Mac, but concepts global (Win/Linux/etc)

Key

The key, for the keys...

Note: Unicode characters used here are not necessarily the accepted standard (I was in a hurry.)

• ⌘ = Command
• ⌥ = Option
• ⌃ = Control
• ◄ = Left Arrow
• ▶︎ = Right Arrow
• ▲ = Up Arrow
• ▼ = Down Arrow
• fn = Function
• Other self explainatory keys, such as: shift, space, C, V, X, etc.
• + = Combo, hold down keys (Ex: ⌘+C = Copy)

Preface

Learning to combine these sections (say Navigation and Selection and Clipboard) create a more efficient well oiled machine (you). It takes time to learn like anything, but as you pick them up and combine them it will become more natural. This allows you to constantly have both hands on the ⌨, and requires less use of the mouse. For example, selecting text with the mouse is cumbersome, and less efficient.

Navigation

Home / End

• ⌘+◄ = Home (line), places cursor at start of line
• ⌘+▶︎ = End (line), places cursor at end of line

Terminal/Bash/Zsh

• ⌃+A = Home (command), places cursor at start of command prompt
• ⌃+E = End (command), places cursor at end of command prompt

Next/Prev Word/Segment

• ⌥+▶︎ = Home (word), places cursor at start of current word/segment
• ⌥+◄ = End (word), places cursor at end of current word/segment

Top of Screen / End of Screen

• ⌘+▲ = Home, places cursor at start of region
• ⌘+▼ = End, places cursor at end of region

 

Selection

• ⌘+A = Select all text in region
• shift+[navigation shortcut] = Selects the text from the last cursor position to the new one

Examples:

• shift+⌘+◄ = Selects text from cursor to the start of the line
• shift+⌘+▲ = Selects text from cursor to the start of the region
• shift+▶︎ = Select text to the right of the cursor (hold down arrow to select more)

 

Clipboard

• ⌘+C = Copy selected text to clipboard
• ⌘+V = Paste clipboard (overwriting selection, or inserting at cursor)
• ⌘+X = Cut, copy selected text to clipboard, and delete selected text
• Jumpcut (app) - App for paste history, scroll through paste history (I mapped to ⌃+⌥+V)

 

Fast Key Repeat, Short Delay Until Repeat (⚡️⌨🚄 )

• 🍎>System Prefrences...>Keyboard
  • Key Repeat>Fast
  • Delay Until Repeat>Short
• Karabiner (app) - App for changing key repeat or delay settings, and also a lot of key remapping, and various misc keyboard utilities
• Mac Preference Keys (via Terminal) or: quickie CLI

 

General App Keyboard Shortcuts

Window Navigation

• ⌘+tab = Change Application
• ⌘+shift+tab = Change Application
• ⌘+~ = Change Window (within application)
• ⌘+W = Close window
• ⌘+Q = Exit application
• ⌘+H = Hide application (click on icon in dock to unhide)
• ⌘+M = Minimize application (click on icon in dock to unminimize)

Tab Navigation

Note: These work in most apps that implement tab features, but check with your specific app to make sure (documentation, Google, or check the context menu's at the top i.e. File, Edit, View, Window, etc. for shortcuts.)

• ⌘+shift+[ = Move one tab to the left
• ⌘+shift+] = Move one tab to the right
• ⌘+[#] = Move to that tab
  • ⌘+1 = 1st tab
  • ⌘+3 = 3rd tab
  • ⌘+9 = (usually) last tab)
• ⌘+W = Close tab
• ⌘+shift+T = Reopen last closed tab

 

Misc

Undo/Redo

• ⌘+Z = Undo last change
• ⌘+shift+Z = Redo last change

Character/Emoji Mapper

• ⌃+⌘+space = Opens the Mac Emoji & Symbols dialog to insert at cursor

Screenshots

• ⌃+⌘+4 = Save screenshot (drag square to crop screen) to image on the Desktop
• shift+⌃+⌘+4 = Save screenshot (drag square to crop screen) to clipboard

Google Chrome

• ⌘+L = Focus address bar, and select all
• shift+⌘+M = Select user to switch to via > Switch Person (or > Go Incognito)

Delete (Characters ahead of cursor)

• fn+delete = Delete one character in front of cursor (not behind like backspace/delete normally operates)

Quick Mac Search Utilities

Map a keyboard shortcut (such as ⌘+space) to quickly search Mac Applications, files, Internet, do quick math, create custom plugins (Ask/PM me about JIRA custom story search)

• Alfred (app) - Replaces Mac Spotlight Search, kind of functions like Chrome's address bar (you can do math, add plugins etc)
• Quicksilver (app) - Alternative (older) to Alfred, I have no experience with this app, I imagine it's still more feature heavy then Mac Spotlight Search

 

Why learn to ⚡️⌨?

• 🔪🐁
• Mouse is slow(er) (more difficult at high sensitivity)
• Aiming with a mouse is harder (you're gonna miss that little x if you wanna go fast)
• What if you don't have a mouse?
• Don't you want to be a Keyboard cowboy? (Hackers 1995 IMDB)

 

 

 

Props to:

• Computers
• Unix
• Mac
• Terminal/Bash/Zsh
• Windows (I had to start somewhere)
• Programmers/Hackers/Happy Humans
• Science
• Keyboards (⌨s) everywhere
• ⚡️ lightning, for being an awesomesauce natural occurance
• and Earth

This probably took way longer than 5min to go through, oh well. RTFM.

Not © Copyright 2015 Matt E Maximus ("Freedom") Swieboda.

Also from emacs:
^ + k = kill to end of line (cuts from where you are to end of line)
^ + y = yank (past the last thing you killed/cut/copied)