Here's something that's been bugging me

[HawaiiMacAddict]

Aloha everyone,

I have a question about something that's been bugging me since I got my iMac last August (not that it's a hindrance to actually preferring the Macintosh experience over the Winblows experience to the extent that one of my goals is to have my house be declared a Windows-free zone ). When some dialog windows pop up, the default button is selected and colored blue. In that instance, all I have to do is press the Enter key. What if I didn't want to perform the default action, but wanted, for example, to opt out of entering the Administrator's password when performing Repair Permissions? My only option, now, is to use the mouse to click on the other option. Is there a key stroke, such as Tab in Windows, to accomplish the same thing? Keep in mind that I'm coming to the Macintosh side (the Light) after having spent the past 16+ years in a Windows world. I would like to be able to use the keyboard, if at all possible, instead of having to reach for the mouse, or using the trackpad to move the cursor up to the desired button.

Any assistance, of course, will be greatly appreciated.

Mahalo Nui Loa,

HawaiiMacAddict

 

[Peterkro]

Back space.

 

[hayduke]

You can use tab and spacebar. Example,

If the Restart/Sleep/Cancel/Shutdown dialog is on screen you will notice that Restart has a blue halo, sleep and cancel are unmarked, and Shutdown is highlighted. If you hit spacebar, you select the blue halo item (eg Restart). If you hit enter/return you get Shutdown. You can tab around and the blue halo moves, then select with spacebar. Make sense?

 

[spinne1]

You can use tab and spacebar. Example,

If the Restart/Sleep/Cancel/Shutdown dialog is on screen you will notice that Restart has a blue halo, sleep and cancel are unmarked, and Shutdown is highlighted. If you hit spacebar, you select the blue halo item (eg Restart). If you hit enter/return you get Shutdown. You can tab around and the blue halo moves, then select with spacebar. Make sense?

I just tried this on my Mac and it did not work. I have a Power Mac G4 running OS 10.4.9. I could not find any key combo that shifted the blue to any other spot, nor was there a blue halo around any of the ovals.

 

[hayduke]

I just tried this on my Mac and it did not work. I have a Power Mac G4 running OS 10.4.9. I could not find any key combo that shifted the blue to any other spot, nor was there a blue halo around any of the ovals.

Try,

System Preferences --> Keyboard & Mouse --> Full Keyboard Access (bottom of window) --> All Controls

That *should* do it. Let us know if that doesn't help.

 

[spinne1]

Try,

System Preferences --> Keyboard & Mouse --> Full Keyboard Access (bottom of window) --> All Controls

That *should* do it. Let us know if that doesn't help.

That fixed it. I never knew that existed (I'm not a huge keyboard user--I copy, paste, open, close, etc. but use the mouse for most other things). Thank you for the heads up.

 

[HawaiiMacAddict]

Aloha hayduke,

thanks for the "Doh!" moment. No matter how many times I've used that particular property sheet to look up keyboard shortcuts, I still failed to notice that particular option. It's just a bit different from Windows, but that's quite alright with me hehehe

Mahalo Nui Loa,

HawaiiMacAddict