As I mentioned in my other comment on this thread, knowledge of one’s tools is paramount. Here, then, is some of my knowledge. (Note that most of this pertains to the Mac OS. I invite users of other operating systems to fill in the gap.)
The Mac’s built-in keyboard shortcut customization feature
Go to the Apple menu → System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts. Double-click on any of the shortcuts to change them to whatever you like (or to add a shortcut where none is set).
Pay particular attention to the last item in the list at left: “App Shortcuts”. Yes, you can select any application that you have installed (whether Apple-provided or any third-party app) and specify a keyboard shortcut of your choice for any of its menu items.
Services
In the same list (in the Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard preference pane) you will see a “Services” item. There you will find all manner of system-provided functions, to which you can add keyboard shortcuts… but did you know that you can very easily make your own Services—which can do anything from launching applications to copying files to executing shell scripts to doing all sorts of more complicated things—and then bind custom keyboard shortcuts for those, as well? You can use Automator (which comes with the OS) to do so (I will not give instructions here, but they can be easily googled).
Keyboard-based launchers
If you use a Mac, no doubt you already know that hitting Command-Space brings up the Spotlight window, where you can type a few letters of the name of an application, etc., and then hit Enter to launch it. But third-party versions of this functionality exist, which are far more powerful and customizable—the one I use is called Quicksilver; others include LaunchBar and Alfred.
Keyboard-based window moving/resizing
Divvy (also available for Windows!) lets you move and resize windows with a set of customizable keyboard shortcuts. (Other applications that do similar things also exist, such as Moom.)
Access keys
This one isn’t Mac-specific, but is a feature of all major browsers on any platform (only the particular modifier keys differ). The way it works is: any link or button on any web page that has its accesskey attribute set, can be triggered by holding down a certain combination of modifier keys (in Chrome on the Mac, for example, it’s Control-Option) and hitting that key.
Unfortunately, access keys are not as widely used as I’d like—and where they are used, there’s usually little or no indication that a website supports them. GreaterWrong.com is an example of a site that uses access keys; for instance, I can hit Control-Option-f to switch to the “Featured” tab, Control-Option-c to go to “Recent Comments”, or Control-Option-i to italicize some text in the comment editor. (You can discover this via the alt-text you get when you hover on a button or link.)
As I mentioned in my other comment on this thread, knowledge of one’s tools is paramount. Here, then, is some of my knowledge. (Note that most of this pertains to the Mac OS. I invite users of other operating systems to fill in the gap.)
The Mac’s built-in keyboard shortcut customization feature
Go to the Apple menu → System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts. Double-click on any of the shortcuts to change them to whatever you like (or to add a shortcut where none is set).
Pay particular attention to the last item in the list at left: “App Shortcuts”. Yes, you can select any application that you have installed (whether Apple-provided or any third-party app) and specify a keyboard shortcut of your choice for any of its menu items.
Services
In the same list (in the Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard preference pane) you will see a “Services” item. There you will find all manner of system-provided functions, to which you can add keyboard shortcuts… but did you know that you can very easily make your own Services—which can do anything from launching applications to copying files to executing shell scripts to doing all sorts of more complicated things—and then bind custom keyboard shortcuts for those, as well? You can use Automator (which comes with the OS) to do so (I will not give instructions here, but they can be easily googled).
Keyboard-based launchers
If you use a Mac, no doubt you already know that hitting Command-Space brings up the Spotlight window, where you can type a few letters of the name of an application, etc., and then hit Enter to launch it. But third-party versions of this functionality exist, which are far more powerful and customizable—the one I use is called Quicksilver; others include LaunchBar and Alfred.
Keyboard-based window moving/resizing
Divvy (also available for Windows!) lets you move and resize windows with a set of customizable keyboard shortcuts. (Other applications that do similar things also exist, such as Moom.)
Access keys
This one isn’t Mac-specific, but is a feature of all major browsers on any platform (only the particular modifier keys differ). The way it works is: any link or button on any web page that has its
accesskeyattribute set, can be triggered by holding down a certain combination of modifier keys (in Chrome on the Mac, for example, it’s Control-Option) and hitting that key.Unfortunately, access keys are not as widely used as I’d like—and where they are used, there’s usually little or no indication that a website supports them. GreaterWrong.com is an example of a site that uses access keys; for instance, I can hit Control-Option-f to switch to the “Featured” tab, Control-Option-c to go to “Recent Comments”, or Control-Option-i to italicize some text in the comment editor. (You can discover this via the alt-text you get when you hover on a button or link.)