Intel's Ronler Acres Plant

Silicon Forest
If the type is too small, Ctrl+ is your friend

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Function Keys

Here's a couple of things I just discovered. You may already know this. Maybe everyone except me knows about it. Whatever. Here they are. Oh, yeah. This is for Mint Linux. It might work on Windows or Apple, but does anyone use terminal windows in those places?

1. If you are doing something full-screen like a game, you don't need to exit full-screen to go do anything else. If you have a second browser window open, Alt-Tab will take you to the other window, no waiting the 50 milliseconds it takes you computer to restore regular windowing mode. But maybe your computer is faster than mine and for you the delay is invisible. You still have to do two separate actions: exit full-screen mode, and change to a different tab. If your other browser's window is already set to where you want to be, then Alt-Tab will take you directly there. There, I saved you two keystrokes today, and every day for the rest of your finger typing existence.

2. If you are working on a piece of code and you are using a terminal window to invoke the compiler and test your program, there tend to be two commands you issue: Compile (cc doggy.c) and Run (./a.out). That works while you are sorting out the basics with the compiler, but once you get things sort of operational, you might want to running your program with a variety of parameters, and you might have to try a few variations, maybe even dozens before you identify a problem. You go off and edit the source code and then you come back to your terminal window to compile your program, but where's the compile command? When you were alternating between Compile and Run, the previous command was only two keystrokes away (Up Arrow twice), but now after a zillion test runs, it's buried somewhere in the log that  scrolled off the top of the screen an hour ago. You really want to sit there pressing the Up Arrow key over and over and over again? Presto-chango, we have an answer for you: a second Terminal Window. Use one for your Compile commands and one for your Run commands. Each window keeps its own record of what happens, so no more endlessly repetitively pressing the Up Arrow key.

P.S. The picture at the top is from a web page with a very long list of keyboard shortcuts. I didn't read it, I just noticed it was very long.



2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wait till you try multiple desktops!

Chuck Pergiel said...

No thanks, I have enough trouble keeping track of what I have in this workspace. I have thought about setting up a second computer to work on different stuff, like programming or games, but it hasn't happened, probably because I would need a bigger desk.