Modding Mac OS X

Adding Application Keyboard Shortcuts

TOOLS YOU NEED

For working through the examples in this section, you’ll need the following applications:

• System Preferences (/Applications)

• Calculator (/Applications)

• Terminal (/Applications/Utilities)

The Keyboard Shortcuts preferences pane lets you associate a custom shortcut for any menu item in any or all of the applications on your Mac. This feature lets you add a new menu shortcut or override the original keyboard shortcut for a menu item. You can also add shortcuts to individual applications or globally to all applications, as described in the following section.

All application shortcuts in this chapter are case-sensitive. Always take care to match the case, spelling, spacing, and punctuation when defining a shortcut.

Non-English-language readers: please note that you will need to adapt the instructions in this chapter to match the exact text on your system. For example, French-language readers do not use Secure Empty Trash. The menu item title is Vider la Corberille en mode sécurisé .

Adding a shortcut to an application

Apple’s infinitely hackable Calculator (/Applications) offers no keyboard shortcut for turning speech recognition on or off. As Figure 8-5 shows, the two-item Speech menu has no keyboard shortcuts at all. In the following steps, you’ll use the Keyboard Shortcuts preferences to add a shortcut for the Speak Total menu option.

Figure 8-5. The default look for Calculator’s Speech menu.

1. Quit Calculator with ⌘-Q if it is running. ...