Something I've always been meaning to ask: Pop-up options and use of tab button.

[Jebaloo]

Hi,

I've been using Macs for about 4 years now and there's just this one thing that I've never managed to work out having switched from a PC.

I remember when I first had a pop-up window come up on the mac, which for example might have said, 'are you sure you want to shut down', or something similar, and on a PC I was used to pressing the tab button in order to go between highlighting the two options 'yes', and 'cancel' before pressing return to select the option, but on a mac I've never worked out a way to select an option on these sorts of pop-up option windows without using the mouse.

I wonder if I'm explaining this properly, but if anyone knows whether it is at all possible to use the keyboard for this, or whether I should just continue to use the mouse in these situations, I'd be really grateful.

 

[gr8tfly]

Try "System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts", enable Full keyboard access: All controls.

 

[Jebaloo]

Hey - thanks so much for your reply, it sounds so simple!

Ok I've tried that - and have just tested it out.

To test it, I opened google and typed something into the input box, and then pressed the red stop button to close the window.

Safari came up with a box to ask me if I was sure that I wanted to close the window and of the two options, 'cancel', and 'close, 'close' is entirely highlighted in blue. BY pressing the tab button I can switch an outer glow type highlight between the two options, but no matter which one I tab between, when I press the return button it closes the window anyway.

Is there anyway of changing this?

 

[WildCowboy]

Use the space bar instead of return.

 

[Jebaloo]

WOW - thank you so much!

can't believe it's been all these years without knowing, I should have asked ages ago!

Thanks again both of you.

 

[gr8tfly]

WOW - thank you so much!

can't believe it's been all these years without knowing, I should have asked ages ago!

Thanks again both of you.

Glad that was what you were looking for.

You might know this one already: cmd-period will select the "Cancel" button.

 

[Zuplar]

good question, i was wondering the same thing.