PFMacLog

Many people love to use keyboard to control the operating system as often as they can without mouse. Then how to control the dialog with keyboard?

Figure A

Figure A shows a typical dialog in Mac OS. The button with blue background (OK in Figure A) is the default button of the dialog. You can always hit the Return key to select the default button, or hit Esc to cancel the dialog.

After hitting the Tab key once, you will see that there’s a blue glow around the OK button (see Figure B). It means that this button is highlighted and can be selected with the Space Bar at this time. And you can hit Tab again to highlight the Cancel button (see Figure C).

Figure B

Figure C

But the Tab key is not available on some dialogs. So you should use ? or Command+? (? is one of the A-Z keys) to select a button other than the default and Cancel buttons. You can use Command+D (D for don’t) to select Don’t Save on the dialog that Figure D shows, and use S (S for sleep) to select Sleep on the dialog that Figure E shows.

Figure D

Figure E