[OS X TeX] Keyboard shortcuts on TeXShop

[Herbert Schulz]

On May 10, 2006, at 12:33 AM, S P Suresh wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> It is great to be part of this wonderful mailing list. I am  
> learning lots of useful things. I am new to Mac,
> having recently moved from Linux. I am very impressed with the TeX  
> front ends available for the Mac. I have
> started using TeXShop. But I have a problem with the editor. I  
> don't know enough keyboard shortcuts for
> navigation and rouline activities like marking a block of text,  
> commenting a block. I was a user of vi,
> though not an expert. I would like to have similar basic features  
> on the TeXShop, without needing to use the
> mouse. Can someone out there help me!?
>
> Thank you,
> Suresh
> Chennai Mathematical Institute, India.

Howdy,

Navigation and selection shortcuts are fairly standard across  
applications on a Mac; learn them for one application and they  
(mostly) work with another application. To comment a block look in  
the Format Menu and the Comment/Uncomment commands there should show  
you the key bindings with your chosen keyboard; this is generally  
true with all commands that have key bindings.

There are several way to extend the menu key bindings.

1)If a command you use often doesn't presently have a binding and  
you're using Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) you can set new bindings in the  
Keyboard&Mouse pane of System Preferences (on a system wide or  
application specific basis).

2)There is a method of redefining menu key bindings using a .plist  
file found in ~/Library/TeXShop/Menus/ but that seems to be  
unreliable at this time.

3)There are extra global editor functions associated with the apple  
framework that can be added to all editors that use that framework.

4)You can write macros (applescript [which can call CLI commands,  
etc.] or simple insertions) and set their key bindings (Cmd + other  
keys).

There are also key bindings for expanding certain keystrokes into  
LaTeX commands, etc.

Go slowly and you'll start to develop a repertoire of your own.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest.com)


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