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TUAW Tip: type a letter to find a menu item

by David Chartier Nov 1st 2006 at 3:00PM

This isn't quite a mind-blowing feature, but it might come in handy to those who frequently need to track down a specific menu item or command. In the menus of any apps (including even menubar utilities), you can simply type the first letter of an item you're trying to find in the currently selected menu. This unfortunately doesn't seem to work across all menus, i.e. - you can't type a command to find it in any menu in the current app, but it should at least help with those "oh I *know* it's in this menu somewhere" moments. This also appears to work across all apps, Carbon (Finder, Firefox) included.

Oh a broader scale, this trick works in many apps in various ways. iTunes is perhaps the best example: you can type the first few letters of an item you're looking for in your media list (or in the Sources list on the left), and iTunes will take you to that particular section, based on which column you're currently sorting items by, or which Browse column you have selected.

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This isn't quite a mind-blowing feature, but it might come in handy to those who frequently need to track down a specific menu item or...
 

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motech

try ctrl f8 for the menu icons (bluetooth, vol, battery etc).
ctrl f3 for the dock

November 01 2006 at 11:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
DWizzy

I'm still more fond of Windows' interface in this perspect. Just hitting 'alt' once (ctrl-f2 isn't really swift, now is it). Default 'dropped down' menu's and configurable hotkeys (instead of the first letter) for each item.

November 01 2006 at 4:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Macintologist

It would be nice if Apple expanded on this feature, for example, while clicking and dragging an icon up the hierarchy of a few spring-loaded folders, it would be if nice if while dragging you could hit a key and the Finder would select the item closest to that key.

November 01 2006 at 4:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
systemsboy

For completeness' sake, this works in Dock folder pop-ups and contextual menus as well. I'm amazed at how few people know about or use this feature of the Mac OS. It's SO handy.

-systemsboy

November 01 2006 at 4:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Craig

You can actually navigate all of your menus this way. Press ctrl-F2 to activate the menu bar. Type the first few letters to select the item you want. Press return to open the menu and type again to select an item. You can also use the arrow keys to navigate in this manner.

November 01 2006 at 4:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
e

With menumaster, you can set a key (I use that useless f13 key on the huge apple keyboards) to bring up a ittle searchbox, and start typing to narrow down the selections across ALL menus. It's pretty slick!

November 01 2006 at 3:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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