We’re all familiar with the Mac OS X Open/Save dialog box. It’s ubiquitous. It’s omnipresent. It’s like Snooki—you just can’t get away from seeing it, no matter how hard you try. And I’ve tried SO HARD, believe me. Oh, with Snooki, not with the dialog box.
If any box you come across looks like this, click on the disclosure triangle to reveal more options.
Did you know, however, that you can use a bunch of keyboard shortcuts while that dialog box is open? My favorite shortcut while I’m there is Command-Shift-D to jump to my Desktop, but here are a few others that I find useful:
Command-Shift-H: Jumps to your Home folder
Command-Shift-A: Jumps to your Applications folder
Command-Shift-G: Allows you to type in the path to a folder
Command-Shift-N: Creates a new folder (and asks you to name it)
Command-Shift-Period: Shows/hides hidden files
Escape: Cancels without saving or opening
Here’s your typical view when you’re opening a file from within a program. At the bottom, I’ve used the Command-Shift-D shortcut to go to my Desktop. Go me!
I think you’ll find that once you start using these shortcuts, you’ll never go back to the innocent days before you knew how. You remember, right? When you used to scroll down to find your Desktop in the Sidebar? Or when you’d cancel out of the dialog, create a new folder to put your file in, and then go back to your application and attempt your save again? Yeah, me too.