KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

If you ever find yourself without a mouse, or with a keyboard with a
sticky pointer, or a back click action, or you simply want to type while
eating pizza (don't think this is a rare thing), you will have to learn
keyboard shortcuts.  Almost anything you want to do can be done without
the mouse.  If it can't be done, it's a programmer error, in my opinion.
It might be slower, but it might also be easier.  It's good to use
keyboard shortcuts whenever you can, if only because it is good to
reorient your hands every once in a while.

(Ever have a ganglion?  A pinched nerve?  A numbness in your forearms
that precipitates random dropping of objects formerly clenched tight?)

In fact, for this lab, why not just move your mouse behind
the monitor.  You won't be needing it for the rest of the lab.

1.  Log on and use tab to move around the desktop and into the
task bar.  If you press ENTER while an item is highlighted, you
will launch it.  It may be hard to see what is highlighted.  Try hard.

If you get to the start menu, you can use the arrow keys.

Try open My Computer, the Recycle Bin, and the browser in this way.
You may have to close your window using ALT-F4 (that's the F4 key
on the top row), or ALT-space-C, which as you can see, is the way
to get to the window menu and close the window.

2.  Next, try opening a folder and moving it and resizing it
using just the arrows.  It is a bit tricky because the first use of
the arror indicates what you plan to do with the subsequent arrows.
Note the difference between ending the arrow sequence with
ENTER versus ending it with ESC.

People don't actually do this very much, but it's nice to know you
can.  They are much more likely to max or min a window.  Open three
browser windows (you can use CTRL-N to get a new browser window
once you are in a window), and maximize, then minimize each one
in succession.  

3.  Use ALT-TAB to switch between tasks.  Can you figure out what
ALT-SHIFT-TAB does?  Now, can you figure out how to open a URL in
one of your browser windows without using the mouse?  Ha ha ha.
There is a fast way and a slow way.  Show the TA you can do both.

Send one of your browsers to ebay, one to yahoo, and one to google.

In the first two windows, search for "barbie".  Then use the edit/find
menu to search for the word "barbie" in the search results.  You might
find ESC a useful key when you are moving between window menu and window
contents.  You might also find ALT-F4 useful in dismissing the find
window.  I am sure that one of these occurrences of "barbie" is a link to
somewhere.  Use TAB to move between links until you find an instance of
"barbie" that is linked to another page.  Use ENTER to "click" on the link
once your successive uses of TAB get you there.

In the third window, the one with google results, try using TAB to
get to the search results.  You can't do it.  Why not?  Is this an
error of some kind that ought to be remedied?

4.  Go to the first window, with the ebay results.  Use your TAB,
find, and arrows in combination to reorder the results so that the
most expensive are listed first.

5.  Can you copy and paste text from this window into a Notepad window?
Wow.  That requires launching a notepad task.  Use CTRL-ESC to get to
the start menu, then use arrows to start notepad.  Use ALT-TAB to
get back to the browser, then SHIFT in combination with the arrows
to highlight some text.  Use CTRL-C to copy, then ALT-TAB to get
back to notepad, then CTRL-V to paste.  Woo hoo.

6.  In the browser, what to ALT left arrow and ALT right arrow do?
How about PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN?  How about the BACKSPACE?  It is
interesting that BACKSPACE behaves differently depending on whether
there is a form with text in it, n'est pas?  Tell your TA what you
think is the difference -- even better, show it to her.

7.  What else can you do with keyboard shortcuts in your browser?
Can you save the web page to a file as html-only?  Can you increase
the font size?  Can you change the home page in the internet tools
menu?

8.  It is time to time you, to see how fast you are.  I am truly
evil, because what I want you to do is not easy.  Practice this
until you think you are fast.  Then ask the TA to see if you can
do it in about 60 seconds.

	From an empty desktop (no windows open),
	launch a browser, open a new window in the browser,
	then send one to google and the other to nytimes.com.

	Go to the last sentence on the front page of the nytimes.com
	page.  Copy the sentence and paste it in the google
	search window.  If there are no search hits, reduce the
	text to just the first word, then try search again.

	Go to the page that google ranks as the first search 
	result.  Then go back to the google search results and
	go to the page that is ranked second.  Go back to the
	search results.  Copy all the text of this page into
	a notepad window, save it, and call the file "foo".

	Close the browser.

	How long did you take?

9.  If the TA can do it faster than you can, you aren't done.