Configuring Keyboard and Mouse Preferences
Although you may think of Mac OS X as something you look at, you also touch it by means of the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad. The behavior of the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad is adjustable to allow for differences among users. If you have trouble double-clicking or if you feel that the mouse pointer moves too slowly or too quickly, you can adjust the mouse or trackpad sensitivity. Likewise, if you end up typing characters repeatedly when you mean to type them only once, adjust the keyboard sensitivity. You adjust the sensitivity of the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad by using the Keyboard & Mouse preferences pane.
Keyboard panel
When you press almost any key on the keyboard and hold it down, the computer types that character repeatedly as long as you keep the key pressed. (The z, Option, Control, Caps Lock, and Esc keys don’t repeat.) Use the Keyboard panel, to change how quickly the characters repeat and how long you must hold down a key before the repeat feature kicks in. If you find repeating keys annoying rather than handy, disable the repeat by setting the Delay Until Repeat control to Off as seen in Figure 13-34.
Figure 13-34: The field that contains Type here to test settings allows for you to immediately test your settings without having leaving the Keyboard & Mouse preferences pane.
Mouse and Trackpad panels
Depending upon if your computer is a desktop or a laptop, you can change the way Mac OS X responds to your manipulation of your computer’s mouse or trackpad by setting options in the Mouse and/or Trackpad panels. Trackpad options are typically only available on a PowerBook or iBook computer, because they contain options specific to a trackpad, as shown in Figure 13-35.
Figure 13-35: Use the Ignore accidental trackpad input to minimize unintentional mouse movement while using a trackpad as an input device.
The settings in common in the Mouse and Trackpad panels have the following effects:
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Tracking Speed: Determines how fast the pointer moves as you glide the mouse or trackpad. You may want to adjust the tracking speed if you change the display resolution. For example, if you change from the display resolution from 1024 x 768 to 800 x 600 pixels, you may want a slower tracking speed because the pointer has a shorter distance across the display screen.
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Double-Click Speed: Determines how quickly you must double-click for Mac OS X to perceive your two clicks as one double-click rather than two separate, unrelated clicks.
Bluetooth panel
If you computer is equipped with Bluetooth capability, the Bluetooth panel is where you manage Bluetooth keyboards and mice. To mate a Bluetooth-enabled peripheral such as keyboard or mouse you need to click the Set Up New Device button, which opens the Bluetooth Setup Assistant (covered in Chapter in 21). As with the Bluetooth preferences pane, there is an option for showing Bluetooth status in the Finder’s menu bar.
Keyboard Shortcuts panel
Using the keyboard is sometimes faster or more convenient than using the mouse, trackball, or trackpad. The Keyboard Shortcuts panel, as shown in Figure 13-36, contains a list of predefined keyboard shortcuts. You can add or delete items from this list as well as change key combinations for the predefined list. Some shortcuts are solely to be used with keyboard navigation and Universal Access, which we discuss later in this Chapter.
Figure 13-36: Keyboard shortcuts can be of great utility for those who have difficulties using a mouse.
To add a keyboard shortcut
To add a keyboard shortcut, take the following steps:
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Click the Add (+) button.
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From the newly drawn sheet, choose an application from the Applications pop-up menu. To apply a keyboard shortcut to all applications select All Applications from the pop-up menu. If your application is not listed, select other to specify.
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Specify the menu command as it exactly appears in the applications menu in the Title field.
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Enter the key combination you want to assign the menu command in the Shortcut menu.
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Click the Add button.
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If you’ve ever wondered why z-N with the Caps Lock key down isn’t equivalent to pressing z-Shift-N or similar things, the reason is fairly straightforward, if a bit geeky.
Mac applications (including Mac OS X applications) respond to events, such as a window activating or pressing a key. One such event is the keydown event. Keys such as Shift, Option, Control, and Caps Lock do not generate an event — their state (up or down) is recorded in what is called the modifier field of the event record. Therefore, when you press the N key, the programmer writing the code needs to check the state of the various modifier keys to determine whether it is just text being typed or whether it is some sort of a command. Every key on the keyboard has a separate state entry in the modifier field.
This method is not peculiar to Macs. The same techniques are used in Windows programming.
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To remove a shortcut
Conversely to delete a keyboard shortcut, highlight the shortcut in list in the Keyboard Shortcuts panel and click the Delete (–) button.
Remember that no matter how badly you mess up here, you can always revert back to the default configuration by clicking on the Restore Defaults button.
| Note | When it comes to keyboard shortcuts, not all are listed in the Keyboard Shortcuts panel. The Mac OS X Finder has numerous keyboard shortcuts that may facilitate your Finder experiences. These keyboard shortcuts are covered in Chapter 3. |
Full keyboard access
For those who have difficulty using the mouse, Mac OS X provides ability to use the keyboard for navigation. Full keyboard access enables you to use the keyboard to navigate to an item in a folder, operate menus in the Finder, and operate push buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, sliders, and other controls in some windows and dialogs. Some Mac OS X applications respond more completely to full keyboard access than others. To give yourself full keyboard access, go to the bottom of the Keyboard Shortcuts panel and select Turn on full keyboard access. Under the Keyboard heading in the list of keyboard shortcuts, you can enable and disable as well as designate the key combinations that allow the keyboard to perform actions in lieu of the mouse. When full keyboard access is turned on, you press certain keys to navigate the menu bar, the Dock, the active window’s toolbar, a palette, a window, or a dialog. Table 13-4 lists the keystrokes that determine the actions using full keyboard access.
| Note | After you turn on full keyboard access, you may need to quit a Mac OS X application and open it again before it responds to keyboard control. |
| Action | Function Keys |
|---|---|
| Full keyboard access on or ofControl-F1 | |
| Highlight menu bar | Control-F2 |
| Highlight on Dock | Control-F3 |
| Highlight on toolbar | Control-F5 |
| Highlight on a palette (utility window) and then on each palette in turn | Control-F6 |
| Focus on next window of the same application | Control-F7 |
You press other keys to navigate and highlight one of the items on which the keyboard is currently focused, such as a menu item, an icon in the Dock, a toolbar button, or a control setting in a dialog. The highlighted item has a dark border. You press yet another key to select the highlighted item or take another action. Table 13-5 lists the key combinations that highlight items, select items, and take other actions.
| Action | Keystroke |
|---|---|
| Highlight the next icon, button, menu, or control | Tab |
| Highlight the previous icon, button, menu, or control | Shift-Tab |
| Highlight the next control when a text box is selected | Control-Tab |
| Highlight a control next to a text box | Control-arrow keys |
| Highlight the next menu item, tab, item in a list, or radio button | Arrow keys |
| Move slider | Arrow keys |
| Restrict highlighting in the current window to text boxes and lists, or allow highlighting of any control in the current window | Control-F7 |
| Select the highlighted item, or deselect it if it is already selected | Space bar |
| Click the default (pulsating) button or the default action in a dialog | Return or Enter |
| Click the Cancel button in a dialog | Esc |
| Close menu without selecting highlighted item | Esc |
| Cancel menu bar, Dock, or toolbar highlight | Esc |
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