Keyboard shortcut to cancel?

[Me1000]

ok so you know when you have a dialog, and there is the pulsing button that is blue, you hit enter to choose that button,

So what do you do when you want to choose a different button?
on windows you just tab over to it,

Can this be done with OS X?

Thanks,

 

[66217]

Sometime you can click the first letter of the option and it would select that option.

Like when you click the power button, the default would be to shut down, but if you press "R" it would restart.

The same when saving something, the default is to "save", but if you press "D" it would select "don't save".

 

[samh004]

ESC is usually cancel.

 

[epochblue]

ESC is usually cancel.

Yep. Rarely have I run into a case where Escape doesn't behave as expected. Almost always the cancel action.

 

[1020]

ok so you know when you have a dialog, and there is the pulsing button that is blue, you hit enter to choose that button,

So what do you do when you want to choose a different button?
on windows you just tab over to it,

Can this be done with OS X?

Thanks,

Yes, you can tab over to a different button, then you would press space instead of enter.
In System Preferences, go to keyboard & mouse settings, and select the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Make sure full keyboard access is enabled (at the bottom).

 

[Me1000]

oh, thank You!

Such a time saver!