These shortcuts have to trigger dozens of commands in an infinitude of programs. (Their names differ on Mac and Windows, but it’s some combination of Shift, Alt/Option, Ctrl/Command, Control, Windows and sometimes Fn.) Your English keyboard has 26 alphabet keys, plus four or five modifier keys. Each looks at the other with disdain.Īs a member of the former group, I think a lot about the mnemonics of keyboard shortcuts.
To this day, some people live by keyboard shortcuts-on Windows it’s Control C for Copy, Control V for paste-and others use the mouse. They were modifier keys, to be used exclusively for keyboard shortcuts, aimed at those who still found tapping keys to be more efficient than mousing to the menu. Nestled on either side of the space bar were keys not found on any typewriter. No longer would people have to memorize key commands! No longer was the computer a plaything of the geeky intelligentsia! The menus would list all available commands, and the mouse would choose them.Įven Apple, though, hedged its bets. Then came the Apple Macintosh, which popularized the mouse as standard equipment. If you wanted to issue a command to your computer, you typed it. In the beginning, there was the keyboard.
