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Creating Missing Keyboard Shortcuts in Applications on Mac OS X
So I’m living with Mac OS X ATM, at least until Kubuntu is fully compatible with my MacBook Air. It definitely has its niceness, but boy oh boy, is it also extremely difficult and inconsistent to work with. One thing that is really annoying is the complete disregard for how the rest of the world does keyboard shortcuts. Or even doing shortcuts in the first place. Never have I seen anyone use the mouse(pad) so much as when observing the average Mac OS X user. Working on this system out-of-the-box is such a drag, everything takes ages because standard keyboard functionality is missing (like Home, End, and Del keys), shortcuts are inconsistent – if even there, navigating a dialog without using your mouse pad is a no-go, Cmd+Tab disrespects spaces, is filled with minimized and tray apps, and creates new windows ad libitum.
Lots of good apps are out there to fix these usability issues, but I just learned how to add keyboard shortcuts for functionality for 3rd party applications, which is a built-in feature of Mac OS X, and really, really cool. I’m sharing it here.
Example: Aptana Studio 3 on Mac OS X supports PHP editing, but there’s no keyboard shortcut for looking up the definition for words in the language. You have to right-click, choose Commands, PHP, Documentation for Word. Not exactly great. This used to be Ctrl+F2 or something like that. But as it turns out, you can just add a shortcut yourself. Open up System Preferences > Keyboard, and choose the Keyboard Shortcuts pane. Chose Application Shortcuts in the left pane, and click the + button underneath the right pane. In the dialog choose the application you want to create a shortcut for, in this case “AptanaStudio3.app” (which you’ll probably have to find yourself – it wasn’t in the list when I did it). In the Menu Title field type in exactly (case-sensitive and all) the menu item you want to create a shortcut for, in this case “Documentation for Word”. Focus the Keyboard Shortcut field and press the keys you want to use for the shortcut. Click Add.
Works straight away!
I haven’t yet experienced what happens if there’s a name collision. I mean, like “New…” appearing in two different menus or something like that. So I don’t know how you would define the correct one you want in the Menu Title field. Time will tell. If you know how to do that, please leave a comment
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