Mac 101: use a tab to navigate dialogs

Funny, I just showed this to a friend yesterday after showing him the Ctrl+Eject option for the shut down dialogue. He said he couldn't tab around to select sleep. I was puzzled but then it just clicked, I took him through the steps and he was floored!

My previous post would make a whole lot more sense if my assumption that the TUAW blogging system would auto-encode less-than's and greater-than's, rather than remove them had turned out to be correct...

Let's try that again, with manual ampersand-lt-semi-colon type-stuff...

To clarify the behaviour:
<Enter> always invokes the default action (all-blue button)
<Space> invokes the highlighted action (blue halo)
<Tab>,<Shift-Tab> moves the highlight.

First letter often invokes a button. The behaviour here may be inconsistent from one app to another. I most often use it in iTunes, where <Del>, <R> ,<M> invokes "Delete", "Remove from Library", "Move to Trash".
No Command key required. Maybe other apps do need the Command key as Darren said.

Yes/No, OK/Cancel type dialogs often have one button set as the default action and the other one initially highlighted, meaning you can invoke either with a single <Enter> or <Space> - no need to tab around first.

To clarify the behaviour:
always invokes the default action (all-blue button)
invokes the highlighted action (blue halo)
, moves the highlight.

First letter often invokes a button. The behaviour here may be inconsistent from one app to another. I most often use it in iTunes, where , , invokes "Delete", "Remove from Library", "Move to Trash". No Command key required. Maybe other apps do need the Command key as Darren said.

Yes/No, OK/Cancel type dialogs often have one button set as the default action and the other one initially highlighted, meaning you can invoke either with a single or - no need to tab around first.

Safari has its own option for this also in:

Safari Preferences > Advanced > Press Tab...

To be sure that this tip "sticks" in case of errant keytaps, disable the Ctrl-F7 keyboard shortcut in System Preferences.

Nice! I have been wanting to know how to do this for a LONG time. And I'm not exactly a new mac user, either. Thank you.

Well slap me silly! That is a very useful trick that has apparently passed me by... well... forever! Until now. Please tell me this hasn't been there all along and is new to Leopard or something.

For dialog boxes, the spacebar would go with what you tabbed to and enter would still select the one that is selected by default. Isn't this right?

Wow! I have been lamenting this fact for the last year ever since I switched and now my life will be changed! Thank you so much.

Additionally, you can use a keyboard command to select the button based on the first letter of the button label. For example, use Command+D to select the "Don't Save" button of a dialog.