Mac Treasures Spacebar, Detail Explanation

Posted by Wendy

This fact will be shocking, but it is indeed that Mac values highly the good characteristics of spacebar. Those are easy to reach, easy to spot, and easy to press. There are so many keyboard shortcuts for Mac that using spacebar, from calling up Spotlight with shortcut Space up to clicking button using spacebar. And of course, to separate words.

Today topic will be focused on how spacebar can replace mouse for clicking.

Spacebar Mightiness, Replace Mouse Tasks to Click

Communication with Mac will often perform the pop-up of several dialog boxes for one day.

Maybe it's like the one above, maybe it's different. But the patterns is the same, what are those patterns?

To perform click button highlighted with background color, use
To perform click button highlighted with border color, use Space
To perform click button not highlighted use as a prefix, and continue with the first letter of the button name, e.g. D for Don't Save button as seen above.

But, to Mac user's surprise, the first option is rarely can be used, because it's only one with those full highlighted background, and it is the default option; the third option sometimes leading to two or more button name with the same first letter. The one that will be recently used must be the second option, the Spacebar.

And to strengthen the argument, have you ever made the background highlight moved with key or maybe the button name change its position? Luckily, that phenomenon never seems to be appear on my Mac. But, this indeed move the border highlight around.

Let's Summarize

Spacebar can associate well with

to call up Spotlight
to select desired button to press
or to invoke QuickSilver (user defined)
to scroll up web page

Stand alone to

Create white space on text editor
Perform scroll down on most of web browsers

And many more to discover. Such a treasure!

Extra! Photoshop Tutorial: How to Create the Effect for Snapshot Above

Initial snapshot; take with 4 Screen capture
Set Background Color to Default; black and white color
CResize canvas size, in case we want to apply border to the image; add 100 to width and height
Make new layer, change to Quick Mask Mode
Set the Gradient color to Background-Foreground Mode and Make Quick Mask Gradient from bottom-most to top-most, pressing may help you make it to straight line
Exit Quick Mask
to Fill with Background Color Black
D to Deselect Selection
Change the Blend Mode to Color Burn
Make a new selection from (0,0) to (562, 155~165); this is around 10~15 pixels above buttons
Stroke the selection with light grey color
Make ? S F Feather for selection, about 10 pixels
with purpose on clearing the area
E Merge two layers
Apply Bevel and Emboss with Angle : 90 degree, Altitude : 10, Highlight Mode : Overlay, 75%, and Shadow Mode : Multiply, Light Gray, 10%
Clk Select all layer and apply Feather : 15px
I Invert the selection
Apply U Hue/Saturation with Lightness to +100
Resize back to original size; reduce 100 from width and height
You've done. Congratulations!