No more menu digging
In programs with a lot of functions in the menus (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) the menus can get pretty big. Even though you know what you’re looking for it can be quite a task to actually find what you’re looking for.
Well… no more thanks to a new feature of Leopard.
Open up the Help menu in any application, for example Finder, by clicking the Help menu item.
Now, just start typing away. For example “Arrange”. As you move your cursor over one of the results, an arrow shows up pointing at the menu item.
Pressing the enter/return key launches the menu item, just as you would click on it.
As you see the search displays all menu item, also those nested deep in submenus. This is one of the small, but great features that make Leopard such a nice operating system.
This is a feature that is built-in into the operating system, so it’s automatically available in every program. No work needed by a software developer.
One more thing for heavy keyboard users
There is a system-wide shortcut to activate the help menu. However, it’s shift-command-/. Not exactly fast nor easy to press this combo of keys.
Let’s customize that.
1) Open System Preferences > Keyboar & Mouse
2) Switch to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
3) Among the items at the top of the list, is an item Show Help menu. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.
4) Double click on the existing shortcut (shift-command-/) so a new input is accepted.
5) Press you desired keyboard shortcut. We recommend control-H since the control key is not used that much for keyboard shortcuts and thus the danger of interfering with other shortcuts is lower.
Do NOT use command-H since this is the default shortcut for hiding an application and you will loose this ability in case you select command-H.
So, control-H it is:
Now that is a shotcut we like. Use it to access the help menu and start typing away to find a menu item. No more mouse usage necessary.
Email This Post
Tags: keyboard, menu bar, menu items
Related posts: