OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Using Input Devices

To work with the Finder, you need to use input devices—the Finder can't read your mind, after all. The primary input devices are a keyboard, which is used both for text entry and to issue commands, and a mouse or touchpad, which is used to select items and then open, move, delete, or perform other manipulations on them. Some functions use multiple input devices at the same time. OS X also can use speech commands, as described in Chapter 29, for text entry, issuing commands, and item manipulations.

Working with the keyboard

The Mac keyboard is very much like any typewriter's or computer's keyboard: It provides the keys for letters, numerals, and punctuation, as well as special keys to manipulate the text, such as Shift to capitalize letters and access some symbols, Caps Lock to capitalize all letters typed, Delete and Forward Delete to remove text, and Return to add paragraph breaks.

But the keyboard also has keys that never existed in a typewriter. There are modifier keys that are used in combination with each other and other keys to access special characters and to issue commands—Command (), Option, Control, Esc, and Fn, as well as Shift—and there are shortcut keys called F keys (because they are labeled F1 through F12 on most Mac keyboards and F1 through F16 on others) to access special functions. Most Macs also have an Eject key to eject any DVD or CD inserted ...