Undo/Redo lists and buttons?

Thanks for your speedy reply, Barry.

Just in case I didn't explain that well, Undo/Redo is sequential in Word too. The advantage of having the drop-down list is that you can move through all your undos/redos incredibly quickly and efficiently. If you need to undo the last 536 edits to grab that one sentence you'd quickly revised on the fly a few hours ago, you can do so with the click of a button and then redo them all again. As just one common example.

It's something I can't work without (as most who've had it discover), so I'll make the suggestion and stick with Word for now.

The toolbar buttons are important to me too, so I'll suggest that. Pages offers a lot of buttons you can add to the toolbar, so it makes sense to be able to add these too. I usually use Cmd-Z, but they're useful at times when it's more efficient to use the mouse, and they don't take up any needed space.

Thanks again.

Peter, yup -- it's sad how old habits die hard! Made the move from Win to Mac 3 years ago and still type Ctrl instead of Cmd when writing these things out.

As long as we're pleasantly drifting... while I love my Macs and would never return to Windows, one thing I don't love about Mac is the uncomfortable use of the Command key for these common functions while writing. It can be painful on the thumb -- especially when you have to do a lot of pasting.

It's not at all ergonomic to bend your thumb in while pressing out your pointer out for Cmd-V. In contrast, using your pinky (which you already use for all the other nearby keys) for these 3 Control combos places your pointer in a very natural position for X, C or V (with your middle finger also good for X). Ctrl-V is very close to the hand's natural finger spread and typing position. I suppose if one has tiny hands, this may not be true. But then, things are naturally designed for average users.

Place your thumb on Cmd, and pointer on V. That's not a natural or comfortable hand position. Now put your pinky on Ctrl and pointer on V. That's very close to a relaxed hand position, with C being pretty much dead-on, splitting the difference between the 3 shortcut keys for maximum comfort.

That said, Cmd isn't so uncomfortable when you're not hitting the combos many times in a row.

Just as a historical aside, the Cmd key was more comfortably placed on the original Mac (which I had back then), as it was both longer and more to the left. That was when Apple took Xerox PARC's dedicated Copy/Move/Delete keys, and made them the 2-key Copy/Cut/Delete combos.

As for keyboard shortcuts in general: there's not really a notable difference between Mac and Windows systems in terms of ease or consistency. Never had a problem with either. Software from third-party companies sometimes uses different shortcut keys for certain functions (on both OS's), but that's almost never true for the common standard shortcuts.

As for toolbars: they're on Mac apps (with popups) too. All those years I used Windows, I never had to zoom in and out due to toolbars taking up real estate, and never heard of that. Pretty much the same real estate on Macs. Pages, for example, has two standard rows of toolbars, just like Word. (Word recently added the Ribbon, which places useful contextual power-user tools at your fingertips if you want them, but it's optional.) On both Windows and Mac OS's, you can choose to hide or show (or even add) toolbars in most apps.

Bottome line: different people prefer working different ways. Both Mac and Windows OS's offer plenty of options for users to work how they wish. Sometimes doing everything by keyboard shortcut is preferable. Sometimes people like to take their hands off the keyboard and just use the mouse for some things. Some people like a combo. Whatever works for an individual for a given task, more power to 'em. No one "right" way.

Peggy wrote:

Microsoft took Apple's keyboard shortcuts and made the typer use their pinky on the control key instead of the much more ergonomic thumb…

That's how I developed thumb tendonitis using a PC at work. Even though I've been retired for four years, it still flares up occasionally. Maybe instead of claiming it as a work-related injury I should sue Microsoft!

Just out of curiosity, how did that affect your thumb? These shortcuts on a PC don't involve your thumb, unlike those on a Mac. Or did you mean another function on PCs? My left thumb hurt all the time the first 8-12 months I was writing exclusively on Macs, though my muscles gradually got more used to it. Now it only hurts when I do a lot of cutting & pasting.

Ah, got it. Ouch, that's quite a stretch, I feel your pain! But I bet it helped your piano playing. 🙂

Don't know how you do it but my hand rests on my thumb and forefinger ranges in front of it.

I use my nose and chin, is that wrong? Seriously though, 'tis uncomfortable to fold the thumb in one way and stretch the forefinger the other. It's most ergonomic (and efficient) to keep your fingers closest to their natural resting fan-like position.

Beats putting the weight of my hand on my pinky and then hovering sideways.

I may be misunderstanding... why would you put the weight of your hand on your pinky, and what hovers sideways? You just press Ctrl with your pinky the way you do when you type, say, the letter a, and tap your forefinger or middle finger.

How do you type a capital D, F or G? Which two fingers do you use?

PC shortcuts are far from being consistent and mnemonic, try Alt F4 for quit, for starters. Then there is the rigmaroll to simply type accented characters on the PC.

Yes, true about Quit. Though it never bugged me because personally, I don't like quitting to be that easy. Cmd-Q is close to other keystrokes that I use often, and thus too easy to tap accidentally now and then. I disabled that shortcut years ago. (I still wish OSX would let you remap it within specific apps, and that it'd let you override the Cmd+Shift+Q shortcut for quitting all apps and logging off. I use similar shortcuts in Photoshop and Word, and have accidentally hit that one periodically. At leat you get the 60-sec chance to cancel.)

You're spot on about accented characters. Don't get me started. Not to mention some common symbols, too. (Easy enough in Word, but it's a joke in the rest of Windows.) I've heard there are add-ons that solve it, but I don't know.

I trust it's only us who find this interesting, so... hi, Peter!

[...] that isn't how I have my hand, in fact the side of my left hand now I look at it is actually resting sideways on the desk next to my keyboard.

Do you mean your fingers are more or less parallel to the space bar -- as opposed to being more or less perpendicular, as for normal typing?

Fascinating... never heard of anyone typing with the ring finger for any of the leftmost keys. The left pinky is normally used for the 3 leftmost letters, Tab, Caps Lock, Shift, etc. For capitalizing a letter, the norm is pinky on Shift, and whatever finger is closest to the letter you want to capitalize. Any typing course will teach that standard, as it's the most efficient and natural position. There's no advantage to moving your pinky off the keyboard to use your ring finger on the Shift key. Indeed, it's less efficient, because you then have to move your hand out of standard position and back into it.

But hey, however one finds it comfortable to type, that's how they should type. Whichever fingers you normally use to type a capital G, that's exactly the same spread as Control+V. It's not un-ergonomic. It keeps you closest to normal typing position. That's all I was getting at.

For 3-key shortcuts, depends on the shortcut. For Cmd+Shift+ a letter, my thumb's on Cmd, forefinger's usually on the letter, and pinky's normally on Shift (but sometimes ring finger, depending on the letter and what I'm doing). Can't think offhand of Ctrl+Shift shortcuts I regularly use, but pinky on Ctrl and ring finger on Shift, with forefinger for the letter is quite natural and keeps the hand close to normal typing position for efficiency.

But again, are you holding your hands in an atypical typing position? Maybe that'd explain the difference?

We must run in different computing circles. Most Windows users I know use keyboard shortcuts. Maybe it depends on what software folks tend to use? For word processing, video editing and power Photoshopping, you pretty much have to if you're going to get anything done before lunch. I do use a combo of shortcuts and buttons, depending on what I'm doing. That works best for me.