Taking the short way
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Take the fast route baby!
There are so many resources out there on keyboard short cuts out there. Some really good ones that just got published include Mastering Photoshop: Unknown Tricks and Time-Savers (where I learned how to commit the text I had just written when my toolbars were hidden: It’s cmd enter!) and I’ve just finished installing Zen Coding into my Coda and Textmate, which will save me a lot of time formatting boring static text, definitely.
Shortcuts are great…
I know quite a few shortcuts in the Adobe package, and I can get around my mac pretty easily with a combination of key strokes. It saves me so much time, and it makes it so much easier to get into my “zone”. We all have our techniques for efficiency when we’re on the computer.
…but they’re also really frustrating
The problem is, they’re not universal. I hit the “V” key constantly in flash in order to get my direct select arrow. I hit “command D” constantly in Illustrator to place an image, but that’s the command for inDesign. After a while I get frustrated enough that I’ll go and change them in the settings, but by then, all flow has dissipated.
They also make teaching difficult
I have often gone to show people how to do something very simple in Photoshop, and to be honest, it takes me a while to find certain things in the menus. I hit keystrokes to change tools, and they are shouting, “Wait! What is that?”
Remember these words: patience and repetition. I think people should always learn the long ways of doing it first. Menus and panels often give a context that learning shortcuts do not. It’s like at school with math: the teacher would show you once or twice how a formula was derived, and then you just remembered the formula, but understood its context. It meant memorizing the formula was much easier, because it had something to connect to in your brain.
They make “experts” out of “amateurs”
I’ve met a few people who are whizzes at Photoshop, could talk to the talk, do the shortcut walk and then I saw their stuff, but it turns out they couldn’t design themselves out of a paper bag. Just because I’m really good with the drill and the hammer, doesn’t mean I should be designing the house.
This short-cutter has mistaken tool mastery with real skill, and that’s a huge problem. For those who strive for mastery in design, shortcuts are not important.
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ever so lately you look for something at google and land up somewhere else. and quite often this has been fun. a good write up about shortcuts.