August 22, 2007
Less Mouse & More Keyboard
I’ve started to re-think my use of the mouse as an input device. The mouse is an inherently slow, unproductive tool for tasks that do not require precision. Yet, we use the mouse for these tasks because it is a habit left over from our computer beginner days. Think about it, the mouse only took a matter of 5 seconds to figure out. But since we are computer experts now, why do we use a mouse when using a keyboard shortcut could do the same thing quicker?
I always love when I find a keyboard shortcut alternative to mouse clicking. It means just a little less strain on my right wrist, which at the ripe old age of 24, is starting to feel a little bit of a tingle from the 10 years of mouse wear and tear. It also means I don’t need to use the dreaded mighty mouse (the only Apple product that I hate).
I’ve recently discovered a few very handy text editing shortcuts in OS X that have cut my “mouse time” down dramatically. All of these keyboard shortcuts move the cursor using a combination of COMMAND, CONTROL and the LEFT & RIGHT ARROW keys:
NOTE: If the SHIFT key is pressed with any of these shortcuts, it will highlight text from the current cursor position to where the cursor was moved.
| Action | Shortcut |
| Move cursor to beginning/end of an area of text | COMMAND + ↑ / ↓ |
| Move cursor to the beginning/end of a line | CONTROL + ← / → |
| Move cursor to beginning/end of a paragraph / block of text | OPTION + ↑ / ↓ |
| Move cursor to beginning of next/previous word | OPTION + ← / → |
After finding about these simple shortcuts, I wonder how I didn’t know about these earlier.
2 of my favorite shortcuts in Textmate for for code editing are:
| Action | Shortcut |
| Move selected text | (With text already highlighted) CONTROL + COMMAND ↑ ↓ ← → |
| Block Code Commenting | (WIth text already highlighted) OPTION + COMMAND + / |
I spend a lot of time in stylesheets, so I make use of the block code commenting keyboard shortcut when I’m troubleshooting CSS.
There are a ton more shortcuts I didn’t mention here that I use. For more keyboard shortcut goodness:
What are your favorite shortcuts?
There are 6 comments on this post. Post yours Comments
I know a few people who have completely abandoned the mouse and instead swear by a pen & tablet - for everything.
Since getting a Macbook, I’ve become a trackpad master. At first I loathed it, but now I seem to be faster with it than a mouse or keyboard shortcut. The two-finger scrolling is borderline magical.
Main reason I embraced vim and never turned back.
Oh, the power of Quicksilver for me. I’m completely addicted to controlling, searching, referencing everything without touching my mouse.
I can’t find the link right now, but I seem to remember reading an article a few years ago, about apple doing mouse vs keyboard speed.
They did tests where they had groups of users performing tasks in an office suite (no idea which one). One group would perform the task using the mouse, and the other using keyboard shortcuts.
In almost all cases, the users using the keyboard shortcuts actually took longer than the users using their mice.
The interesting part, was that all of the users perceived they had accomplished the task faster using the shortcuts. They all estimated their time to complete the task as being faster, when in fact it had taken them longer than using the mouse.
I’m not saying there’s aren’t productivity gains to be made from using some keyboard shortcuts(honestly, I’d cry with shortcuts for cut/paste/copy), but the key advantage of a mouse, is the simplicity of inputs allows you to process less between actions.
Brian Artiaco
Growing up with CP/M and DOS I’ve always been a keyboard fan. In fact the only thing that slightly annoys me with an OSX Mac is it isn’t as keyboard friendly as a PC with Windows :(