Keyboard Shortcuts, Woohoo!

Any readers that are old enough to remember the mouse as a new invention (hey, I got my start on a Commodore 64) will already know that using keystrokes can be far faster than reaching over for the mouse. Many AT users are also heavy keyboard users; a friend of mine "tolerates no rodents" in his computing. All of the above, then, can celebrate the co-creation of Keyboardian and InftyReader... this handy-dandy keystroke list for 234 commonly used applications. The list ranges widely from ubiquitous Microsoft applications to Google's apps and some great open-source apps like Open Office and Firefox.

I do notice that Apple is conspicuously absent, with only Safari and iTunes represented. Hmm. I also noticed that there are no screenreaders in the list. Double hmmm.

If you are one of the mouse-dependent crowd and have no clue why someone would memorize all these keystrokes, think about how much faster using a two-key combination (such as CTRL+C) is than taking your hand off the keyboard, moving it to the mouse, right-clicking, moving the mouse to the Copy command in the context menu, then moving your hand back to the keyboard. There's been some studies done in Denmark, as well, that indicate mousing is harder on your body. For an interesting discussion on mouse vs. keyboard efficiency, check out this article on Slashdot.

Thanks much to Steve Jacobs at IDEAL Group for the heads-up on this one!

If you've got a favorite source for keystrokes, or if you'd like to add to the ever-popular keyboard vs. mouse debate, let's hear from you in the comments!