Keyboard Shortcuts

Projected Time

• 45 minutes

Prerequisites

• Command Line Interface

Motivation

• Speed up your workflow dramatically by using keyboard shortcuts. Bash/Shell shortcuts in particular will improve your control and comfort with the command line.

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Navigate the command line more easily using common shortcuts

Specific Things to Learn

• Bash/Shell navigation shortcuts

Materials

• Keyboard Shortcuts: Slides
• Great Intro Video to Bash/Shell Navigation (9 min)
• Mac OS X Terminal: Time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts (8 min)
• Keyboard shortcut practice app

Lesson

1. Have apprentices open their command lines and navigate to a folder they feel comfortable experimenting in.

2. Show video linked above, which should be embedded in the slideshow. Have apprentices follow along on their command lines.

3. Introduce the app below, and allow apprentices a few minutes to practice.

• This is our custom app for memorizing command line keyboard shortcuts.

Guided Practice:

Cheat Sheet App:

There’s an optional app that shows you a Keyboard Shortcut cheat sheet on a mac whenever you hold down the command key in most applications. Note this will help with your command line app, but not the commands themselves. This app gets great reviews on Product Hunt.

1. Download Cheat Sheet for Mac here.
2. Install it, drag it into your applications, open it.
3. Change the settings it recommends in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility.
4. Navigate to different applications and try holding down the command key for 2 seconds to see if it works!

Independent Practice:

• Apprentices are encouraged to practice the Keyboard Shortcut Practice App 30 minutes per week during their first month.

Supplemental Resources:

Command Line Keyboard Shortcuts

• Mac Terminal Cheat Sheet
• 20 Mac Terminal Keyboard Shortcuts, Explained
• Windows Command Prompt Keyboard Shortcuts

General Keyboard Shortcuts

You don’t have to use keyboard shortcuts for everything on your computer, but after trying common desktop shortcuts out, you may prefer some of them to a mouse interface.

• Mac General Shortcuts
• Windows Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet

General Mac Tips:

• Two Finger Scrolling - Slide two fingers up or down the trackpad to scroll.

• Pairing a Magic Mouse - To pair the magic mouse with your Mac:

  1. Turn it off.
  2. Hold the ‘mouse button’ and while holding the button, turn it on.
  3. Keep holding the buton till the green light starts blinking repeatedly (this puts it in the discovery mode).
  4. Pair your Mac with the mouse through System Preferences > Bluetooth or System Preferences > Mouse.
  5. Rename your mouse to identify it easily (and not steal someone else’s mouse).

Mac Utilities (optional):

• Alfred 3 - Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.
• Magnet 2.0 - Window manager for Mac. Magnet keeps your workspace organized. Activated by dragging, customizable keyboard shortcuts or via menu bar, it declutters your screen by snapping windows into organized tiles.

More Mac-Utilities that could help you enjoy macOS experience even more!