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mac3687

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 22, 2006
51
0
As a new Mac user, I'm busy learning all kinds of keyboard shortcuts that are coming in handy with my MacBook. One particular key, shown on screen as the outline of an upward pointing arrow, eludes me. For example, to send a message in Mail, you could hit that up arrow, the apple key and D, but when I hit the up arrow on the lower right of my keyboar, it doesn't work. Any suggestions?
 
As a new Mac user, I'm busy learning all kinds of keyboard shortcuts that are coming in handy with my MacBook. One particular key, shown on screen as the outline of an upward pointing arrow, eludes me. For example, to send a message in Mail, you could hit that up arrow, the apple key and D, but when I hit the up arrow on the lower right of my keyboar, it doesn't work. Any suggestions?

That's the "shift" key.
 
It's not on my shift key--standard apple keyboard with an iMac.

Wierd. I'm not on a Mac right now (still at work) but it's printed on both my shift keys...

Edit: I've just checked it online and you're right! Apple have printed the work "shift" instead of the standard symbol. I wonder why?
 
Wierd. I'm not on a Mac right now (still at work) but it's printed on both my shift keys...

You're right, though -- it *should* be printed on the shift key. And the option-symbol should be printed on the option key, too. That would save newbies hours of headaches.

I wonder if it's a US-UK thing...
 
You're right, though -- it *should* be printed on the shift key. And the option-symbol should be printed on the option key, too. That would save newbies hours of headaches.

I wonder if it's a US-UK thing...

And the control symbol on the Ctrl key? Now that would be non-standard. And confusing as it's ^ which the Ctrl key does not type! ;)
 
Thanks guys for the quick reply. Like they said above, mine only says shift, hence the confusion.
 
So, just to summarize graphically, you can see most of them in this screenshot:

Shortcuts.jpg


Looking at the Force Quit shortcut (mein gott im himmel), from left to right, those shortcuts are:

Option (two keys to left of spacebar)
Shift
Apple (one key to left or right of spacebar)
Escape

In almost all Mac shortcut sequences, the two Apple keys, the two Shifts, etc, are interchangeable.

The only other one to know is that Ctrl (which doesn't come up much except in ported apps like MS Office) is abbreviated as "^".
 
And the control symbol on the Ctrl key? Now that would be non-standard. And confusing as it's ^ which the Ctrl key does not type! ;)

I wonder how often newbies try to shift-6-click on something to invoke the contextual menus ;)

Seriously, it would be good if there was a different symbol for the ctrl key (labled "control" on my computer). But at least ctrl isn't used too often, especially now that all macs ship with a mighty mouse or the two-finger click option.
 
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