Windows Key Shortcuts
I went years completely ignoring the humble Windows key, but it turns out it does a lot of useful stuff!Windows key by itself
Tapping the Windows key brings up the start menu, and places the cursor right in the search/run box. This is a great way to launch apps or files, or do searches. It also has nice autocomplete functionality. Note that Ctrl-Esc does the same thing, but why use two keys when you can use one?Windows key combinations
Win-X -This gives you a quick menu with a lot of useful system actions:
Win-Up - Maximizes the current window.
Win-Down - If current window is maximized, will change it to "normal" mode (unmaximized). If unmaximized, it will minimize the window. So you can go from maximized to minimized by doing Win-Down twice.
Win-Shift-Left, Win-Shift-Right - Moves the current window to the next monitor to the left/right. I'm not a big fan of three-key combinations (sometimes called "chords") but this one is an absolute godsend if you use multiple monitors.
Win-L - Lock the screen. Quicker than ctrl-alt-del, then choosing "lock screen". This is handy in a work environment when your company security policy requires you to lock your workstation when not at your desk, or when working in any other public place.
Win-M - Minimize all windows. Handy for "tidying up" when you have a lot of windows open all over the screen.
Win-Left, Win-Right - Tile the current window to the left half/right half of the screen. This is particularly useful when you've only got one monitor, but you need to refer to two apps at the same time. Also useful if you want to compare two versions of something side-by-side, but for some reason you can't use a diffing tool. Maybe you have two similar Word documents or something like that.
Alt Key Shortcuts
Alt key shortcuts also tend to do things at the operating system level, rather at the individual application level.Alt-Tab - Switch between open applications/window. This is the big enchilada - it allows you to switch to a different window quickly. Doing a quick alt-tab and releasing will switch to the last window you used, which is very handy for switching back and forth between two windows. Holding down the Alt key, you can keep hitting Tab and it will cycle through all the open windows, or you can use the arrow keys to navigate more directly to the one you want.
If you have multiple screens, it can be difficult to find the mouse pointer sometimes (at least for me), and this slows me down if I want to switch to a new application by clicking on the app on the taskbar. Alt-Tab lets you go to the application you want to without needing to know where the mouse is - when you finish, you have focus in the application.
Alt-F4 - Closes the current window. This is very useful, but unfortunately I find this a bit of a "finger stretcher." Side note: why doesn't Alt-W close a window, analogous to how Ctrl-W (see below) closes a document within an application?
Alt-Spacebar - This displays the current window's System menu:
I don't use this often, but it's really useful if you're in the catch-22 where the top of the window is off the screen and you need to grab the top of the window in order to move it all onto the screen.
Ctrl Key Shortcuts
Control (Ctrl) key shortcuts usually work within an application, and fortunately there's a lot of standard behavior that works in most programs.Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V - Cut, Copy, Paste. If you're not already using these, stop right now, learn them, and practice them so you'll never need to go to the Edit menu for these again.
Ctrl-Z - Undo. What I said about Cut, Copy and Paste applies here as well.
Ctrl-A - Select All in current document or page
Ctrl-S - Save current document/file etc.
Ctrl-O - Open File
Ctrl-N - New (File, Document, etc.)
Ctrl-F - Find, usually "Find in current document" or "Find in current page".
Ctrl-H - Very often this is Find and replace in current document (or current page).
Once you get those down, these would be the next ones to start fooling with:
Ctrl-W - Close current tab or document (within multiple tab or multiple document application). In Visual Studio this is Ctrl-F4 by default (although you can change it to Ctrl-W).
Ctrl-G - In an editor, this is usually "Go to line"; i.e. typing "Ctrl-G 47" will take you to line 47 of the current file.
Ctrl-I - In an editor with formatting capabilities, this will often toggle italics on/off for the selected text.
Ctrl-B - In an editor with formatting capabilities, this will often toggle bold on/off for the selected text.
Ctrl-Tab - In multiple-document or multiple-tab applications, often cycles through tabs or allows you select tabs or open documents similar to how Alt-Tab works.
Ctrl-T - in an application with multiple tabs, this is often "New Tab".
Ctrl-+, Ctrl-- - Increase or decrease font size. In particular, "Increase Font Size" is extremely useful for those of us who have reached, shall we say, a certain "maturity level".
Ctrl-K - In an editor or email client, this will often allow you to set a hyperlink for the selected text. If you have the URL in the clipboard, this then becomes a matter of selecting the text, then pressing Ctrl-K, Ctrl-V
The Rest - Navigation, etc.
If you start using more keyboard shortcuts, you may notice that "keyboard shortcut use begets more keyboard shortcut use." In other words, once you start keeping your hands on the keyboard more, you may find yourself looking for more ways to keep them there. This may happen in part because once you've been ignoring the mouse pointer for a few minutes, you may have trouble finding it again, particularly if you have multiple screens.Aside: To help with this, you can change your mouse settings so tapping the Ctrl key will give you a visual indication of where the mouse pointer is. Here's what the setting looks like:
Here are some other keyboard actions to help you stay on the keyboard.
Tab - go to the next input field in a form. Shift-tab goes to the previous one.
Enter - click the button with the current focus
Esc - Cancel the current dialog or operation. You probably already knew about this one, but you may find yourself using it a lot more if you're more keyboard-oriented.
Arrow keys, PgUp, PgDown, Home, End - Likewise, use these to navigate through a document or page in a text editor, browser, email client, etc.
Ctrl-Left Arrow, Ctrl-Right Arrow - Navigate one word left or right.
Ctrl-Home - Go to the top of the document or page
Ctrl-End - Go to the bottom of the document or page
Learn a Few at a Time
Rather than trying to learn a lot of these at once, what has worked better for me is to focus on a few, getting them "under my fingers," then moving on to others. Little posted cheat-sheets like this are helpful:
Browser Shortcuts
Everybody spends a good bit of time in a web browser, so knowing a few shortcuts there can really pay off.Ctrl-T - Open a new tab
Ctrl-W - Close current tab
Ctrl-Tab - Go to the tab to the right of the current tab (this is sometimes configurable depending on the browser and plugins. For example, it may take you to the last tab used)
Shift-Ctrl-Tab - Go to the tab to the left of the current one
Ctrl-L - Go to the location bar, and select the current URL (so if you just start typing a new URL or search phrase, it will replace what's there)
F5 - Reload the current page
Backspace - Go back to the previous page (or previous point in history). In other words it works like the Back button.
F12 - Open Developer Tools
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