Mac OS X Porting - Keyboard Shortcuts

Contributors

• Ismael Merzaq: Ismael
• Mox Soini: Mox

Introduction

For most of the keyboard shortcuts in OpenOffice.org, the Mac OS X port will follow the other OpenOffice.org platforts, to maintain consistency and allow people to use several platforms without much re-learning.

However, there are some special cases that require Mac OS X port to make exceptions in shortcuts, compared to the other platforms:

• Mac OS X System has global keyboard shortcuts that override existing OpenOffice.org shortcuts
• Apple Human Interface Guidelines (AHIG) requires that all Mac OS X applications define certain common set of shortcuts. That common set might cause a change for shortcut to have different functionality.

  Example:
  Some key accelerators are already used by Mac OS X, and so Mac OS X catches them and does the associated action,
  causing OpenOffice.org to not see them. 
  
  For example, when we press F9 in openoffice (native version or X11 version), the fields aren't refreshed, 
  because the Mac OS X function Exposé is launched and catches the key accelerator (to refresh the fields, go to
  tools>refresh>fields in the menu.
  
  What we have to do is to change the conflicting key accelerators for OpenOffice.org.

Mac OS X Shortcuts

The following table describes the differences in keyboard shortcuts and the reasons for the changes. For detailed information, see: Apple Human Interface Guidelines, AHIG for key accelerators and menus and for menu examples

OpenOffice.org Mac OS X shortcuts

Generic OpenOffice.org
Functionality	OpenOffice.org Mac OS X	OpenOffice.org	Reason
Main command key	Command (CMD) the "Apple" key	Control (CTRL)	In Mac OS X, the Command -modifier is the logical equivalent of Control modifier in Windows and Linux
Function keys	F1 - F12	-	Function keys in Mac OS X have system-wide functionality (like F9 for Exposé)
Spotlight search	CMD-Space	-	This shortcut is used system-wide in Mac OS X
Apple reserved	CMD-Shift-Space	-	This shortcut is used system-wide in Mac OS X (see Apple shortcut documentation)
Preferences... access to settings	CMD-, i.e. comma	-	AHIG, system-wide standard. Mac OS X: Preferences... in (System-wide) Application menu, i.e. the "Apple-menu" OOo: Tools > Options
Help	CMD-? i.e. question mark	F1	AHIG, system-wide standard
Redo	CMD-SHIFT-Z	CTRL-Y	AHIG, system-wide standard
Spellcheck	CMD-; i.e. semicolon	F7	AHIG, system-wide standard. Mac OS X: Edit > Spellcheck
Non-breaking space	Option-Space	CTRL-Space	conflicts with AHIG. See also Wikipedia:Non-breaking space
Close Window	CMD-W Close in File -menu	CTRL-F4	AHIG, system-wide standard. OOo: window > Close the window with the key accelerator and File > Close without key accelerator.
Save As	CMD-SHIFT-S	-	AHIG, system-wide standard.
Left-align	CMD-{ i.e. left bracket	??	AHIG, system-wide standard
Right-align	CMD-} i.e. right bracket	??	AHIG, system-wide standard
Align to center	CMD-| i.e. pipe	??	AHIG, system-wide standard
Decrease size of the selected item	CMD--	??	AHIG, system-wide standard. Equivalent of the Smaller command in OpenOffice.org
Increase size of the selected item	CMD-+	??	AHIG, system-wide standard. Equivalent of the ?? command in OpenOffice.org
Conditional hyphen	??	CTRL--	conflicts with AHIG
OpenOffice.org Writer
Functionality	OpenOffice.org Mac OS X	OpenOffice.org	Reason
Refresh fields	??	F9	Conflicts with Mac OS X system.
Style dialog	??	F11	Conflicts with Mac OS X system.
Default format in Format -menu	??	CTRL-SHIFT-Space	Conflicts with Apple reserved shortcut, see Apple shortcut documentation OOo: Format > Default format
OpenOffice.org Calc
Functionality	OpenOffice.org Mac OS X	OpenOffice.org	Reason
Recalculate the cell content	??	F9	Conflicts with Mac OS X system. OOo: Tools > Cell content > Recalculate
Group (data)	??	F9	Conflicts with Mac OS X system. OOo: Data > Plan > Group