The lack of mnemonics support in OS/X is a disaster for productivity and ergonomics: what are some partial workarounds?

OS X has shortcuts for commonly used Menu items, just like Windows.

How did you handle mouse driven drop down menus in Windows, might I ask?

And, for the most part, the shortcut keys are standardised across all apps.

And, if you are new to the Mac and OS X, you will have to learn these shortcuts the same way you did for Windows.

Now for individual applications, this is another story as each application will have its own set of shortcuts keys setup by the developer/s of the app/s in use.

So, putting application keyboard shortcuts to memory will be even more challenging for you.

There are only certain applications I use all the time and I have put most of those application keyboard shortcuts to memory over time.

But no one s going to remember application shortcuts for each and every application on their Macs.

This is NO different in Windows.

So, I fail to see you complaint here other than the fact with OS X you will have to learn OS X commonly used shortcut keys that maybe different from the ones in Windows that maybe you have learned to use and memorised for years and years.

Here is a list from Apple of all the commonly used keyboard shortcuts if you care to start learning them instead of using a mouse.

Not every user knows every Mac or Mac app keyboard shortcut, but there are quite a few you should learn using your mnemonics to put to memory.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

Leave these up in an active window on your computer or print these pages out for your reference.

Just like all of us Mac users here, it is going to take you time to learn the really most commomly useful shortcuts to get around the Mac OS and applications

Good Luck to You!

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem or a suggestion for change. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem/suggested change solved sooner.

Feedback

Since you are taking to a Mac user audience, could you please describe what you desire in terms that do not assume the audience understands Windows (as many in this forum have rarely used Windows and their understanding of Windows concepts is weak).

Also since this is a user-to-user forum, and everyone here is volunteering their time, please try not to denigrate us.

It is unlikely you are going to get that level of menu navigation out of Apple. Windows and Unix based GUIs have had this feature for about 20 years, and Apple has yet to adopt it. I suspect it is not going to happen any time soon.

Chances are you have some frequently used menu items in any apps you use that would benefit from a shortcut hotkey combination. The best you can do is use System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts and for any menu items you find you want to use a lot, but do not have a keyboard shortcut is to create your own. There are many of on-line articles that explan step by step with pictures how to do this. NOTE: I did this for "Pages" last night because a menu items I needed to use about 60 times did not have a command key shortcut, so I created one for that menu item. The task I was doing was greatly improved after I did it.

If the operation you want is not capable via System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts, there are 3rd party utilities that can provide hotkey capabilities beyond what Apple bakes into macOS.

All I'm trying to do is suggest ways you can mitigate the need to use the mouse/trackpad, and thus interrupting your workflow. I'm not suggesting this is better or worse than what you are used to. I'm just suggesting ways to move forward with the apps you need to use.

Track pad and learn all of the keyboard shortcuts.