Time Savers

We all are busy, and we're all looking for ways to save time and make time. Any video editor can tell you that shortcuts are essential to working quickly and efficiently. For that reason, I'm going to share a few shortcuts that I find helpful when using a Mac.

Now I know any novice Mac user is likely familiar with a slew of shortcuts that they use from day to day. For instance, Command-Tab and Command-Q (if you don't know what these are, you should, so just try them out) are some pretty common go-to keyboard shortcuts. So instead, I'm going to share some shortcuts that I find myself using on a daily basis, but which I don't think most users take advantage of. So here we go.

Command-W
This keyboard shortcut will close out the active window. This is especially useful in an internet browser when you want to close out a single window or tab (yes, this shortcut works to effectively exit a single tab, both in Safari and Firefox). Keep in mind, this shortcut will not quit a program altogether.

Shift-Command-Bracket (either [ or ])
This keyboard shortcut is useful in both iChat and web browsers (Firefox and Safari). It will toggle through whatever tabs you currently have open. The direction of the bracket will determine the direction of the toggling. Keep in mind, to use this in iChat, you must select in Preferences to group chats into one window.

Command-Click
This shortcut applies to clicking on links. When in a browser, clicking on a link while holding Command will open the link in a new tab. This shortcut also works in other programs. For instance, Command-Clicking a link in the Mail application will load the link in a web browser, but will leave Mail as the active application.

Command-Spacebar
If you are like me, you don't keep all of your applications in your dock. When I want to access those applications that don't find a home in my dock, I often take advantage of spotlight. Instead of wasting precious seconds moving my hand to the mouse, I often just that Command-Spacebar (in that order) to open up the text entry box for Spotlight. Then opening those rarely-used programs becomes a breeze!

Option (when using a shortcut menu in the finder)
I find this shortcut most useful when dealing with PDF files. Many PDF files open in Adobe Reader by default, but I prefer them to open in Preview. To accomplish this, I can control-click on a PDF in the finder and choose "Open With." However, if I control-click, and then hold the Option key, the menu changes to display "Always Open With." After selecting a program, the file will always open with the specified program, regardless of which computer it's viewed on.