Home/End question

[JadeBuddha]

I've been using my new iMac for several weeks now after too many years as a PC user. One typing shortcut I've grown used to on PCs is using the Home and End buttons on my keyboard to move to the beginning and the end of lines that I type in a variety of programs. However, OS X doesn't seem to work this way. Are there keyboard shortcuts I should be using to jump to the beginnings and ends of lines? Is it possible to change the shortcuts so they duplicate the PC functionality in this case? (Pressing one button for these commands seems awfully easy.)

 

[Amdahl]

I often use Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E. Command-Left or Command-Right also might work.

 

[kuwisdelu]

I've been using my new iMac for several weeks now after too many years as a PC user. One typing shortcut I've grown used to on PCs is using the Home and End buttons on my keyboard to move to the beginning and the end of lines that I type in a variety of programs. However, OS X doesn't seem to work this way. Are there keyboard shortcuts I should be using to jump to the beginnings and ends of lines? Is it possible to change the shortcuts so they duplicate the PC functionality in this case? (Pressing one button for these commands seems awfully easy.)

On a Mac the Home and the End buttons move you to the top and bottom of a page, or the beginning and the end of a document, respectively. When you think about what they're called, it doesn't really make sense that the "Home" and "End" of a document are the beginning and end of individual lines. That's why the Mac uses these commands to return to the beginning (the real "home") and the end (the true "end") of a document, web page, or whatever.

Use the arrow keys for navigation within text, with the addition of Option or Command to change how far within the text you move.

Arrow left or right = move cursor a single character left or right
Option + Arrow left or right = move cursor a word left or right
Command + Arrow left or right = move cursor to the beginning or end of the line

Arrow up or down = move cursor one line up or down
Option + Arrow up or down = move cursor a paragraph up or down
Command + Arrow up or down = move cursor to the beginning or end of document (same as Mac's "home" and "end")

This will work for navigating text in all Cocoa-compliant applications.

So in short, what you're looking for is Command + Left or Right.

 

[blodwyn]

I've been using my new iMac for several weeks now after too many years as a PC user. One typing shortcut I've grown used to on PCs is using the Home and End buttons on my keyboard to move to the beginning and the end of lines that I type in a variety of programs. However, OS X doesn't seem to work this way. Are there keyboard shortcuts I should be using to jump to the beginnings and ends of lines? Is it possible to change the shortcuts so they duplicate the PC functionality in this case? (Pressing one button for these commands seems awfully easy.)

I found this tip a while ago and it worked great with my Tiger system. I haven't tried it using Leopard so be warned. I cut and pasted into TextEditor and saved it as a plain text file in the location specified.

Quote from tip:

Save this to Users/username/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict

{
"\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLine:";
"$\UF729" = "moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:";
"\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLine:";
"$\UF72B" = "moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:";
"\UF72C" = "pageUp:";
"\UF72D" = "pageDown:";
}

After saving the file, your home and end keys will work like they do in
most other operating systems, moving the cursor to the front and end of a
line. Holding shift will cause the whole line to be selected. The last couple
lines also adjust the page up and down keys, which will move the cursor
up and down a page instead of just scrolling. Any applications you are
running will need to be restarted before this takes effect.

EndQuote: