Shortcuts I use a lot

This guide is specific to MacOS because that’s what I know, and I can guarantee that these shortcuts work out of the box on a fresh install. A lot of them will work for Windows as well, replacing command with the Windows key or control.

For most developers, the practice of software development is, at a basic level, typing. There are other ways of interacting with the computer, such as voice recognition software, which can be especially useful for disabled people. I am not an expert in that, though, so I will focus on the keyboard.

While programming is typing, typing is not the point of programming. As such, many developers learn to interact efficiently with computers via keyboard shortcuts, bypassing the mouse as much as possible. This may seem like a marginal and pointless task at first (it did to me!), but building flow and fluency with the medium becomes more valuable over time.

If you are a new programmer, do not try to learn and incorporate all of these at once! It took years for me to add these to my repertoire, and I am still learning.

Here’s a quick glossary. The key combinations that make up a shortcut can be called chords, which I think sounds cool. And if holding down a key modifies the behavior of another key or chord, it is called a modifier key. The shift key is a modifier that everyone knows; it turns lower case letters into upper case letters.

I will start with a list of the most useful that you can get started with right away, and then delve into an exhaustive list. But first, go to keyboard settings and move the “key repeat” and “delay until repeat” sliders all the way to the right. This is one of the first things I do on a new Mac, and it automatically makes it feel ten times more responsive.

I use some custom shortcuts for specific programming tasks that I will not list here. I tend to prefer doing shortcuts with just my left hand, so sometimes I’ll remap an existing shortcut to enable that. For example, cmd + p in VSCode opens the fuzzy finder, but I’ve remapped it to cmd + t.

Note that oftentimes, adding shift to a chord will perform the opposite of the normal action. For example, cmd + tab selects the next application, and cmd + shift + tab selects the previous application. I won’t list this shift modifier exhaustively.

Most useful shortcuts (start here!)

Global shortcuts for MacOS

These work in the global MacOS context or in a majority of apps.

Terminal

I still don’t really know the difference between ctrl + d and ctrl + c, but mashing one or both will reliably end a process in terminal.

Text editing stuff

These work for most text editing contexts, like VSCode, SublimeText, Google Docs, or any old text box on a web page. They will not work in the terminal, vim, or emacs.

Note that holding shift while doing any cursor movement (word-by-word or line-by-line) will select as you go. This can be powerful for copying large blocks of text.

The following are specific to VSCode and similar code editors.

Browser

I could write a whole series of articles on the importance of tab navigation, including its role in accessibility and discoverability. In short, it’s very important and useful, but two of the main browsers have it disabled by default. Make sure you enable it!

1. Safari

   Safari Preferences > Advanced > Press Tab to highlight each item on a webpage.

   While you’re in the advanced menu, select “Show full website address” and “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. This will make web development in Safari much easier.

2. Firefox

   System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls (at the bottom of the window)

3. Chrome

   Tab navigation is enabled by default in Chrome.

Miscellaneous

Here are a last few useful tidbits for specific apps.