Feb 03
Maybe everyone knows this (and if so, I apologize for the post), but maybe it’ll help someone. When switching to Mac one thing that annoyed the hell out of me was that I couldn’t use the tab key to switch between buttons in a dialog box. It was some time before I stumbled on it: In the Keyboard and Mouse prefs, there’s an option to set Tab to switch between “all controls”. Note that unlike Linux, if you use tab to switch to another control button, and press enter, the originally selected button is pressed, not the new one that you selected with tab. To select the new button (which will be white with blue around it), press spacebar.
February 3rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for the tip. I needed that one. New to Mac as of past 3 months and that was bugging me, too.
Still, I must ask, what’s the “official Mac method” of doing this on a standard OS X setup without altering someone’s preferences? I was famous for being able to operate Windows w/o a mouse (difficult, but necessary if your mouse stops working for some reason).
Along these lines, here’s a link to official OS X keyboard shortcuts:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hey, great tip, but I’m not able to locate the “set tab to switch between all controls” preference. I’ve looked all of the Mouse and Keyboard area of System Preferences. Can you give specific details? Thanks.
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:00 pm
System Preferences – Mouse & Keyboard – Keyboard Shortcuts
At the bottom is says Full Keyboard Access, select All Controls.
(Note: I’m not sure if this works in Tiger)
February 4th, 2008 at 12:24 am
thx for the tip with the space bar – had already given up on that as even though I managed to move the highlight around hitting enter just would not do it…
February 4th, 2008 at 1:27 am
You can cycle through every button in a dialog by pressing (repeatedly) ctrl+F7 (w/o activating “set tab to switch between all controls”). I guess this can be the Mac way of doing it
February 4th, 2008 at 3:09 am
I’ve been wondering about this shortcut for 5 years. I can’t believe I didn’t know about it. Thanks 1,000,000 for posting it. This makes my life better. If you’re fast on a keyboard, you shouldn’t have to reach for the mouse, right? Now we don’t have to. Hallelujah! To post this, I’m going to [tab] down to the ’submit comment’ button below and hit spacebar. Oh, the little joys of life!
February 4th, 2008 at 3:20 am
can’t believe this one, been looking for it for ages ! Cheers
February 4th, 2008 at 3:55 am
This is a good one – thanks!
February 4th, 2008 at 4:23 am
i still don’t get it. help?
February 4th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Thank you! =)
February 4th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Cool indeed.
But unfortunately, this behaviour seemd to depend also on the application used.
For instance for me, when using Photoshop, the tab key will switch only between the lists and input fields, not with the buttons.
Does anybody have the same behaviour or is it just me ?
Thanks
— Sven
February 5th, 2008 at 2:42 am
I appreciate all your tips but have one teensy quibble…I really wish you would stop apologizing to the people who may already know about the particular shortcut! If they know it, they will ignore it, so you should ignore them and focus on the people you will help by posting it instead! Thanks!
February 7th, 2008 at 8:24 am
You can also just type the first letter of the text that’s in the button that you want to press. For example, if you want ‘Cancel,’ just press ‘c’ on the keyboard. I’m not sure what happens when two buttons start with the same letter. I haven’t run into that yet.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Do Help!! Thanks for your tip!
February 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
It is Helpful!! Thanks for your tip!
February 9th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Just FYI, this option can be switched at any point in time without having to open the System Preferences simply by pressing “ctrl + F7″
Of course, this is stated in the Keyboard and Mouse settings window.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
thanks, i was looking for this!
February 11th, 2008 at 12:10 am
Fantastic tip, and one that cures an ill that was driving me crazy… Thanks!
February 12th, 2008 at 7:39 am
What I’d like to know is how to disable this in Leopard. Under Tiger, it worked as described in this tip. Under Leopard, even with “Full Keyboard Access, select All Controls” turned OFF, all controls are still cycled through with the Tab key. How can you return to tabbing just among text entry fields?
February 19th, 2008 at 12:21 am
This has been bothering me since day one (~4 months ago). I consider myself good with computers and hate reaching for the mouse if I don’t have to. Thank you!
@David: Check comment #3 above for the specifics, or the shortcut mentioned in comment #16.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Thanks for posting this. As a recent convert from Windows having to reach for the mouse to deal with dialog boxes was driving me nuts, but thanks to you I have solved one of my last major Mac annoyances.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Thank you! This issue has been a 5mo. annoyance, having to use the mouse to navigate my blending layer modes in Photoshop day-in day-out. I can’t wait to get to work Monday and try this out!
Thanks for posting keyboard shortcuts for drop down menus for Leopard on Google.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Hey people,
I have the same problem as Sven. In Photoshop I can’t use Tab (or any other key for that matter) to switch through buttons. Does anyone have a solution for that?
Greetings Marleen
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
Great tip! Thanks. Just switched to Mac from Windows last week and this is helpful. BTW, the ctrl+F7 tip does not work for me.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Thanks. Tabbing through controls stopped working for me 3-4 days ago and I have no idea how. Either I somehow hit the magic key combo or the latest OS X update reset this. Seeing how accidentally hitting fn+ctl+F7 is pretty unlikely, I’m guessing the latter.