Beginner’s Tip: Save Dialogs and Buttons
Did you ever notice the different types of buttons on a dialog box? One button is pulsing with an aqua-like blue. Another is just a plain button, and the last one has a light blue border around it. What if I told you that you could click on any of these buttons without touching the mouse?
The Save Dialog Box
This is a dialog box you will see a lot of. Apple realized this, so they added a bunch of easy commands to increase your speed and overall productivity. Start off by pressing Apple + S to open the save as dialog box. You should see a text box for the name of your file. This is already highlighted for you so that you can type the name right away. Next comes the location pull down menu/box. if not by default, click the little triangle to the right to show a larger location area. To save to the desktop, hit Apple + D. This takes you directly to the desktop. Hit enter to save your file. If you accidentally opened up the save as dialog box, press the esc or escape key to close it. Please note that this is a system wide trait for the save as dialog box. You can do this little trick within any application.
The Blue Outline
Whenever you see the button with a blue outline, hit the Space Bar to use it. If there are other normal buttons available, press the tab key to cycle through them.
These are just a few simple tips to make your Mac experience a productive one.
Thanks for this tip!
But ive got another question, maybe someone can help.
For instance im trying to close TextEdit with some temporary notes. I’m hitting apple+q and the box pop ups with the question:
Would you like to save? (No / Cancel / Yes). So Esc is Cancel, Enter is Yes, but how to reach No per keyboard?
Isn’t there a blue outline as well that you could cycle through via TAB ? Or could you bring one up via TAB ? Not as good as just one button. In Windows you can highlight every button afaik, so Mac OS should be able to do the trick
Nope, the TAB key trick doesn’t work with TextEdit. Just try it with your TextEdit. It’s a standard Mac OS X application.
Oh yeah, I thought I read TextWrangler or somethign like that. Sorry. I just tried it out and actually No (or German “Nicht Sichern” with me) is highlighted and the Space Bar triggers it, so Yes/Enter, Cancel/Esc and No/Space Bar for me. It alwass amazes me that I can find new features of Mac OS everyday
Try hitting the “N” key. That also works I believe.
RW: Cmd-D equals Don’t Save!