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An easy way to create custom keyboard shortcuts. For all links discussed in this video, check out http://www.cultofmac.com
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0:04
hey everyone this is Michael with Cult
0:06
of Mac here and today I'm going to show
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you how you can create custom keyboard
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shortcuts for any application that
0:11
you've installed on your Mac so most Mac
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users will know that OS 10 has a lot of
0:17
keyboard shortcuts for making things go
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quicker on your Mac uh such as quitting
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applications and the basic stuff like
0:23
cut copy and paste Apple has some
0:26
restrictions on these keyboard shortcuts
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though and it takes a little digging to
0:29
figure out how you can actually change
0:31
them or disable some or things like that
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so that's what I'm going to show you how
0:35
to do today and how to add your own for
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any application for any menu item that
0:39
doesn't already have a keyboard shortcut
0:42
so the first thing I'm going to show you
0:43
is how to disable your function keys up
0:46
on the
0:47
top so let's say that you use your
0:49
function keys all the time you know
0:51
maybe to go to dashboard or things like
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that but you don't ever play music with
0:54
them and you'd rather have your media
0:56
keys do something more useful than you
0:59
know play music from iTunes maybe you
1:01
don't use iTunes this application here
1:04
called function flip actually lets you
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disable basically changes the function
1:10
of your media keys or whatever function
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keys you choose this is a free
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application and I'll have a link below
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the video so you can download so
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basically once you download it's a
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system preferences Pane and if you have
1:22
an Sy system preferences so basically
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with function flip you can disable the
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function of your function keys a lot of
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functions there here uh basically any
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function key that you select will
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disable Itself by default unless you
1:37
hold down the function key so it's kind
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of like an inverse of what the key was
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it's called function flip so for example
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I have f8 selected for playing pause so
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if I hit f8 you won't see any media
1:50
playing or anything like that so the key
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is now disabled but if I still want to
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use it I can hold on the function key
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and then press f8 and then it'll start
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playing music like it normally would but
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now that these fun fun keys are freed up
2:01
now what I can do is I can assign
2:02
different keyboard shortcuts to them
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that I might use all the time instead of
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something like spaces which I might
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never use and this gets us to the next
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process here which if you go back to
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show all and you go over to the keyboard
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tab you can click on keyboard shortcuts
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up here and you have all the different
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default keyboard shortcuts that are on
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your Mac and this is pretty nice because
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if you want to look at keyboard
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shortcuts that are set by default this
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is a way to do it and you can learn
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keyboard stru Cuts this way uh but you
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can also change the ones that are
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default and you can also add your own so
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if let's look at something like
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Spotlight here and I can change the
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function of showing the spotlight window
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from option command space to whatever I
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want so all I have to do is double click
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on it and I can add my own key so let's
2:53
try Control Alt command space so now you
2:57
have that entire combination and now
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when I hit hit that combination you can
3:01
see that the spotlight window pops up so
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it's kind of a nice option that you can
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change your keyboard shortcuts by
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default so this is kind of Handy if you
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don't particularly like the keyboard
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shortcuts that are built in by default
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or perhaps you want to use a certain
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shortcut for something else now if you
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want to make your own what you'll have
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to do is you'll have to go down to the
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application shortcuts and now you'll see
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that this little plus minus box appears
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here and you can select plus and now you
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can select what application you want
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from here so these are all the apps that
3:31
you have installed on your Mac and you
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can choose any one of these apps or if
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you go up to the top you can select all
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applications and this will act like a
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global shortcut for everything and with
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this you can edit a keyboard shortcut
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for anything so for this example I'll
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just use app store and we'll do a
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keyboard shortcut for that so now that
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you have App Store selected now you can
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go into App Store and you can look at
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what menu commands are available to you
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so if we go up in these menus here and
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we look around
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uh let's go under window and let's say
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we want a keyboard shortcut for Zoom now
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this isn't probably something that you
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use a keyboard shortcut for to zoom uh
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but it's just a good
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example that is unmapped already by key
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combination as you can see stuff like
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minimize and close the window I already
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have key combinations but let's make one
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for Zoom so what you'll have to do is go
4:22
back over to system preferences and you
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have to put in the menu title and now by
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menu title they don't mean the top level
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menu like edit viewer window or
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something like that they mean the actual
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menu uh item that you want selected so
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if you go to window and then you can see
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we want just zoom so what we'll do is in
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system preferences we'll type in zoom
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and then the next tab we'll put the
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shortcut that we want so before when we
4:49
used function flip we disabled the f8
4:51
key uh that used to play music so let's
4:53
say now we want to use the zoom option
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all the time now I don't know really why
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you'd want to uh but just an example
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example now we can select f8 and once
5:02
you hit it on your keyboard it'll pop up
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in the keyboard shortcut box and then
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you can hit enter to add and now you've
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created your shortcut and you can go on
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creating shortcuts like this all day
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long for any application and all
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applications as well
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globally and once you have this done
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well quit out of system preferences now
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and now I'm in app store and I hit f8
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you can see that that now toggles the
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zoom option so it's a handy way to remap
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keys on your keyboard maybe clear up
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some of the function keys that you don't
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really use and make them do what you
5:34
want so there you go there's how you can
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assign keyboard shortcuts for any
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application in Mac OS 10 and as always
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if there's anything that you'd like to
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have me do a howto about uh whether it's
5:43
about OS 10 or iOS make sure to send me
5:46
an email I hope we found this video
5:48
useful this is Michael with CAC and
5:50
thanks for watching
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