How-To Geek

Thanks to the hard work of forum member deaner225 and some prodding from myself, we've got a new feature on the forum that as far as I know makes us the first forum to have gmail style hotkeys for navigating through the forum without using the mouse.

For instance, once you enable the feature, you'll see a little caret next to items in the list:

At this point you can use the J and K keys to move the caret up and down, and then use the O key to open that thread, where the J and K keys will let you scroll from post to post. You can use the R key to reply (which puts the focus into the textbox), and then use the U key to return to the forum homepage. (all keys actually should be used in lowercase)

Instructions on how to enable (in your profile edit), as well as a full list of the hotkeys can be found here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/wiki/Help:ForumHotkeys

Of course you should keep in mind that this isn't for everybody, and since we just added the feature there might be bugs. It won't affect you if you don't turn it on, though.

If anyone has any suggestions for key commands that they think would be useful in being added to the list, please post them because we're interested in hearing suggestions

Nice feature, not a gmail user myself, but I'm sure this will come in handy!

I suspect you are right. Why make it simple if there is a more complicated way. Where would all the "fun" be.

'it's very geeky though :)'

so that means it must be ok then!

I've gotten really used to using those gmail keys while in gmail, Google Reader, Remember the Milk (web-based todo list), Google search (with experimental keys enabled), and of course while using the vim text editor through ssh (where the keys were inspired from).

So for me and a number of my keyboard ninja friends, it's a matter of making everything work with those keys since it's the norm for me =)