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Key-command bleed-over


I use a lot of key commands daily and most of them have been committed to muscle memory where I just think about what I want to do and I don’t think about how to do it. I use cmd-tab and cmd-~ to change applications and windows. In text editors, I’m always using ctrl or cmd with the arrow keys to jump across words and lines of text. In TextMate I use cmd-T to open files, and I use ctrl-opt-V for pasting from JumpCut. In GMail and Google Reader I use j, k, y, [, and ] to navigate (1) through my messages and rss feeds. Amazingly (to me) I seldom confuse these different commands across different applications because their meaning is tied (in my mind, apparently) to specific contexts.

But today, I experienced some bleed-over.

I was just looking at The short - but eventful - life of Ike on The Big Picture and I tried to use j to move to the next picture, rather than scrolling with my mouse wheel. And when it didn’t advance to the next picture, I tapped it a couple more times before realizing that it wasn’t going to help. I think it would be a good feature to add, but for the most part, I just thought it was funny that I kept trying to advance to the next picture without actually thinking about what I was doing.

(1) - GMail & Reader: j = next; k = previous; GMail only: y = archive, [ = archive and move to previous message, ] = archive and move to next message

This entry was posted by Scott Vlaminck on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 10:52 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Further Discussion (2 Responses so far. Add yours)

  1. Hamlet D'Arcy said...
    At some point you’ll try to swat a fly off your monitor by shooing it with your mouse pointer. Now that’s scary.

  2. andhapp said...
    My mate was combing his hair and did not like the style… and in his mind he thought about Ctrl+Z to undo it back to how it was…:o)

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