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Introduction

Abbreviations

Installation Tips
Icon Operation
Compatibility
Disk and File Operation
Internet Applications
Keyboard Shortcuts
Undocumented Features
Third Party Utilities
Miscellaneous

Disclaimer

Keyboard Shortcuts

  1. What are the special uses of the [Right Amiga] key?
  2. What are the different ways I can drag-select icons?
  3. How can I use the keyboard to navigate inside windows?
  4. What are the special keys in Workbench?
  5. What are some other functions that can be performed in Workbench via keyboard?

1.
Q: What are the special uses of the [Right Amiga] key?
A:
  • Hold down the [Right Amiga] key and click on any drawer window close gadget to close all drawer windows.
  • Hold down the [Right Amiga] key and double-click on an icon to open that icon and close the drawer window it is in; note that if the icon won't open, the drawer window will still close.
  • Hold down the [Right Amiga] key and drag an icon into a drawer on the same volume to have it copied instead of moved.
  • Hold down the [Right Amiga] key and click on an info window close gadget to close all info windows.
  • Combined with the "Open Parent" menu item, it closes the current drawer window after opening the parent drawer, or even if this is not opened.
2.
Q: What are the different ways I can drag-select icons?
A:
  • To select an icon, click on it.
  • To select another icon, hold down any [Shift] or [Ctrl] key and click on it. You can combine this with the marquee, and the "Select Contents" menu item.
  • To de-select a single icon, hold down either the [Left Alt] or [Ctrl] key and click on it. You can combine this with the marquee.
  • To de-select all icons, simply click on an 'empty' area of the Workbench screen (without holding down any modifier keys).
  • To drag icons around, click on them and move the mouse. You do not need to hold down a [Shift] key.
  • [Ctrl] will toggle selection of icons, and works both by clicking on icons and by using the marquee.
  • If [Right Amiga] is held down, icon movement will be limited to the axis corresponding to the direction the mouse was moved. This is similar to how brush dragging works in some paint applications.
  • Typing the first few characters of an icon's name with the keyboard will be sufficient to identify a file or drawer. To start over with a new file name, wait three seconds.
3.
Q: How can I use the keyboard to navigate inside windows?
A:
  • Cursor keys can be used to move around in a window. Hold down the [Ctrl] key to move in steps of one pixel; ditto for the window scroller arrows.
  • [Tab] will move to the next icon, with the next icon being the one that would follow the currently selected icon in a list sorted by name. If the currently selected icon is the last in the list, restart at the top of the list. If no icon is currently selected, select the first visible icon closest to the top left corner of the window.
  • [Shift]+[Tab] works just like [Tab], but will select the previous icon.
  • [Cursor up], [Cursor down], [Cursor left], and [Cursor right] moves the window view in the direction indicated by the cursor key, provided that no icon is currently selected. Otherwise, it will select the icon closest to it in the direction indicated by the cursor key.
  • [Alt]+[Cursor up] opens and/or activates the window associated with the current directory's parent directory.
  • [Alt]+[Cursor down] will open the drawer and/or make its window the active one, if a drawer-like icon is currently selected (drawer, disk, trashcan).
  • [Alt]+[Cursor left] and [Alt]+[Cursor right] will cycle through all currently open drawer windows.
4.
Q: What are the special keys in Workbench?
A: [Right Amiga] will perform special functions, such as closing all windows when clicking on a window close gadget, copying files when held down while dropping icons, closing the parent drawer window of an icon double-clicked on*, and closing a drawer whose parent was just opened.

* It's known that 'ToolsDaemon' clashes with this feature.

5.
Q: What are some other functions that can be performed in Workbench via keyboard?
A:
  • To skip the WBStartup drawer being scanned at system boot time, hold down any [Alt] key.
  • To leave the multi-line text input gadget used by the information window, press either [Shift]+[Return], [Alt]+[Return], or [Ctrl]+[Return].
  • For drawer or volume size in the Info window, click the size display to start collecting information on drawer's contents. The scanning process will recursively search through the directory contents tree, collecting the number of drawers, files, bytes and blocks allocated for it. (Note: for this counter to work properly on byte counts larger than 232-1, you will need to have installed Boing Bag 2a).
  • To cycle through all Info windows, hit [Alt]+[Cursor left] or [Alt]+[Cursor right].