Filed under: OS, Software, Tips and tricks
A shortcut for zooming windows
I'm huge on keyboard shortcuts. I mean: huge. I dig through Quicksilver's documents whenever I have time to learn more about all the insanely handy things it can do, and I'm still waiting for a "Keyboard Shortcuts and You" book to show up at Amazon.One thing that's always irked me is, even though OS X and most of the apps I use are fairly well thought-out in their design and use of common shortcuts, there's one option I use on a frequent basis in a lot of apps that's never had a shortcut: zoom, also known as the green "best fit" button in the top left of nearly every window.
Earlier this week I noticed this option is located in *nearly* every app's menu under Window > Zoom and I realized: why don't I just assign my own shortcut? While this tip might sound like a no-brainer to some, I've met enough people who had the "oh that's so obvious! Why didn't I think of it?" reaction, so I figured I'd post it: if you want a system-wide shortcut for this often-used feature, (or a shortcut for almost any other app's function that doesn't already have one) just head into the Keyboard and Mouse System Preference pane in either Panther or Tiger and open the "Keyboard Shortcuts" panel. Click the plus sign to add your own shortcut and make sure "All Applications" is selected in the dialog, then type in "Zoom" for the menu title. Chose your own shortcut wisely so it doesn't conflict with other applications and *bam* - you now have a handy keyboard shortcut for an often used but sorely overlooked feature of OS X that should work in almost every app, even Carbon ones like Firefox and the Finder. You'll probably need to restart any running apps for it to take effect, but if you did this correctly your new shortcut should show up under the Window menu as in the picture accompanying this post.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Michael Henley said 10:18AM on 10-23-2005
Cool trick. Another neat thing I discovered recently is that you can assign a universal keyboard shortcut to menu items that are normally hidden under the option key. So for example I assigned ctrl-opt-cmd-zero to 'Arrange in Front' on the Window menu. Works great.
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Alex said 3:35PM on 10-24-2005
Is a 4 key combination really a shortcut anymore? :) Its like: "type a sonnet to minimize".
Ill use the mouse thank you :)
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AlMeister said 11:48AM on 10-23-2005
Good grief. I've been looking for a way to do that for ages. Looked for utilities, hacks etc. And the whole time it's right in front of my nose. I've used the keyboard shortcuts for other things (like assigning opt-cmd-F for full screen view in Preview) but it never occurred to me to use it for zoom. Thanks for posting that!
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Wry Cooter said 12:05PM on 10-23-2005
Do you use Quickeys? Just wondering who might in the OS X age; mainly because I'm thinking it might be better for automating -some- actions than, you know, automator.
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Chase Browder said 1:39PM on 10-23-2005
i did the same thing with zoom about two days ago but i ran into two problems. 1. i did this with iTunes in mind and i can not get it to zoom with the short cut. it seems to be becasue of the selections of songs in the various boxes in iTunes. 2. when i tryed to watch a windows media file i couldn't zoom the window to different sizes because zoom in windows media player takes you to another menu to select the percentage to zoom your window. so this might affect other media applications with similar menu structure. so i liked this idea but i turned it off immediately because it conflicted with things i needed to do frequently or didnt work in some apps.
Chase
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Chase Browder said 2:08PM on 10-23-2005
i did the same thing with zoom about two days ago but i ran into two problems. 1. i did this with iTunes in mind and i can not get it to zoom with the short cut. it seems to be becasue of the selections of songs in the various boxes in iTunes. 2. when i tryed to watch a windows media file i couldn't zoom the window to different sizes because zoom in windows media player takes you to another menu to select the percentage to zoom your window. so this might affect other media applications with similar menu structure. so i liked this idea but i turned it off immediately because it conflicted with things i needed to do frequently or didnt work in some apps.
Chase
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lgc90 said 3:28PM on 10-23-2005
Iv'e been using this for a while, and I find it really convenient, but what I can't figure out is how to make a keyboard shortcut to a folder. This would be similar to Finder's "Go" menu, but for the folder of my choice.
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Poncho said 4:58PM on 10-23-2005
@lgc90,
If you have QuickSilver, open QS's preferences and go to the "Triggers" tab. Click the plus sign to add a new trigger, drag a folder into the dialogue, select the action "Open" then add your shortcut.
I actually use Butler to do roughly the same thing, but I know QuickSilver can do it like so.
Cheers;
Poncho
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Timmargh said 6:46AM on 10-24-2005
I did exactly the same thing about a week ago (assigned a keyboard shortcut to "Zoom", that is) only I used Command+F10 ... not exactly sure why.
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Boss Sauce said 1:15PM on 10-24-2005
Even better: System Preferences > Universal Access lets you zoom into anything at any time by turning Zoom on:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/universalaccess/
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ninc said 1:49PM on 10-24-2005
I actually use Butler to do roughly the same thing, but I know QuickSilver can do it like so.
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James said 5:39PM on 10-24-2005
How about Bring All to Front? Can't get that one to work. Desperate for it. Anyone?
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