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Score yourself in this Mac OS X keystroke quiz


July 30, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   We live in a Windows-centric world. It's not surprising, then, that most computer users -- even some who use Mac OS X -- think of Windows keystrokes when they're trying to recall ways to do something from the Mac keyboard.
   It's easy to remember, for example, that the "Copy" key combination on a Mac is Cmd-C; after all, it's Ctrl-C in Windows. And it's a no-brainer that the paste function is Cmd-V (Ctrl-V in Windows).
   But there are many keystroke combinations that Mac users can call their own. Two that I use constantly are Cmd-W, which closes a window, and Cmd-Q, which closes a program. There are no equivalents in Microsoft Windows, despite years of opportunities for Microsoft to add such keyboard features.
   (The Windows key combination Alt-F4, which is very hard to do with one hand unless you have a keyboard with function keys arrayed vertically along the left, is the all-purpose close-program key combination for Microsoft fans. But there's no way in a standard Windows setup to reliably close only the window, not the program, from the keyboard.)
   Some of the most useful OS X key combinations are practically unknown.
   An almost essential "hotkey" is simply the letter C. If you hold down the C key when your Mac OS X computer is booting up, it will boot from the CD or DVD drive. (You have to make sure a bootable CD or DVD is in the drive first, of course.)
   How about Cmd-Delete? That tosses whatever you've selected into the trash. Did you know about that combination? I'm convinced that most Mac OS X users don't know that one. (Ergonomically, it's ideal; your thumb falls right on top of the Cmd key and you can easily press the Delete key with a finger.)
   If you knew what one already, don't get your hopes up. I'm not going to go easy on you. Here are five tough ones. The answers will be at the end.
   All these questions assume you have an Apple Pro keyboard (the standard keyboard on all modern Macs).
   You press which keys to:
   1. Immediately shut down your computer?
   2. Show a dialog with shutdown choices?
   3. Hide the dock (or show it, if it's already hidden)?
   4. Capture an image of the selected window?
   5. Make a quick copy of anything you've selected on the desktop or in a Finder window?
   
   OK, that wasn't so hard, right? Check your score:
   1. Ctrl-Option-Cmd-Eject
   2. Ctrl-Eject
   3. Alt-Cmd-D
   4. Cmd-Shift-4, then Spacebar
   5. Cmd-D
   How'd you do? If you scored 100, you're a Mac OS X guru.
   We'll have more keyboard tips later this summer.