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Mac keyboard symbolsSunday 3 August 2008 Apple computers are beautiful, Apple computers are the pinnacle of usability, I grant all of that. But here's something that for the life of me I cannot figure out. Why don't the menu symbols for modifier keys (control, alt, shift) appear on the keyboards? Like any modern operating system, OS X menu items have keyboard short cuts, and because there are so many menu items, they occasionally need modifiers other than the command key. Here's a menu from Safari:
The command symbol we all understand because it appears on the keyboard, but what are those other two modifiers? Why not print them on the keys?
The thingy next to "Show All Bookmarks" is for option, which is labelled on the keyboard with "option" and, alternately, "alt", but doesn't have the symbol. The big up-arrow next to "Add Bookmark Folder" is not the up-arrow on the keyboard, but the shift key, which is labelled only with "shift". And God forbid you should have to ever Force Quit an application. Is that a Quicktime symbol?:
I must not be the only one who is confused, because Dan Rodney started off his thorough Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts page with a translation chart:
Why no symbols on modifier keys? Or, why is the command key special? Why is it labelled with its symbol while the others are not. This seems like a really basic usability rule: refer to the same thing the same way in different contexts. Is there some logic to this, or is it just that the minimalist hardware design gurus win out over the operating system usability guys? | |
Comments
I thought the exact same thing.
http://www.iminstant.com/iminstant/iminstant.nsf/d6plinks/CTYR-7GNP8A
Hmmm... on my Mac Pro wired keyboard all those symbols *are* there. From the diagram above the only exceptions are the escape key and the control key - alt (option), delete, shift etc all have the symbols shown.
It gets even better when you have a German keyboard version - try finding "[", "]", "{" or "}" on a non-american Apple keyboard. Even with the older Apple keyboards this has been a usability nightmare.
That's why I chose the "workaround" of buying a Microsoft Natural keyboard. And there's some good news about them, too: The Microsoft OS X keyboard drivers are not compatible with Apple's Java 6 implementation - the keyboard does not work in Java 6 apps, as for example Netbeans 6.1 with JavaFX. Isn't that beautiful? ;-)
All of the symbols are right there on both of my macs - an Air and a fairly ancient G4 PowerBook.
The other problem I have with Mac keyboarding is that I'm never sure whether I need to use cmd-whatever or ctrl-whatever. I usually have to just guess and see which works. And then I forget again.
Why four modifier keys? Aren't three enough?
Michael and Ian: I wonder if we have a UK/US difference here. The MacBook Air pictured on the Apple site (http://www.apple.com/macbookair/design.html) clearly doesn't have the keyboard symbols.
I assumed it was a wired keyboard / laptop keyboard difference? (Although what Ian says would appear to contradict that...)
The UK apple keyboards do have them. However # (hash to us in the UK and disturbingly 'pound' to Americans) is hidden under option 4 - which is great for developers....
> It gets even better when you have a German keyboard version - try finding "[", "]", "{" or "}" on a non-american Apple keyboard.
This is why you have the virtual keyboard. Also, I don't know for german but on the french keyboard they're combinations of the parens keys and modifiers (alt or alt and shift, I think, I can type them when I'm using my mac but I don't remember the exact chord)
So, a slight tangent, but the command key has a symbol because, historically, the symbol was the only character on the key. And it looks like the symbols on the other keys are/were rarely present.
http://2aday.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/why-the-applecommand-key-finally-lost-its-apple/
Agreed. My MacBook doesn't have the symbols, and there's no reason why. Allow me to pile on: there's no excuse for Apple to ship a single computer without a second mouse button and without a forward delete key.
I'm pretty sure it's a US / UK / Other difference, as my Macbook keyboard features most of the icons.
Yes. It's a US/most-of-the-rest-of-the-world difference. The European keyboards, which all use the ISO key arrangement label the modifier keys symbolically. Perhaps this is for reasons of being multi-lingual. The US keyboards (ANSI arrangement) use English most places. The command key is the exception: it has been decorated with a symbol since the days of the original Macintosh.
Here's an example of an ISO keyboard (German layout):
http://www.tgunkel.de/it/hardware/doc/ibook_g4_linux_data/iBook_G4_keyoard_german.png
Ever since I got my MacBook Pro generation 1 (aka, the gettin-the-kinks-out generation), I have struggled with the Option key symbol. What is it even... representing? the drop shadow of a backwards italicized T?
I still call the command-key 'open-apple' since there used to be an Open Apple and a Closed Apple on old Apple //es and IIgs's ...
Ugh... the whole thing is like a twisted joke on "usability".
So that's what that symbol is...
I gave up using Mac keyboard shortcuts because the only symbol I knew was Shift (ok, and Tab and Delete, the delete key is marked and the tab symbol is marked on the windows keyboard with that symbol. Page up, page down, enter (non-keypad) look obvious enough (ok, the windows keyboard enter has that symbol too). Arrow keys are arrow keys.
But yeah. I'd never ever figured out the alt key.
In finder help for keyboard symbols is has a forward and backward delete keys but how does the forward delete work?
The UK keyboard is labeled better with 2 exceptions, # and ⌃.
1. To get # requires "alt ⌥" + 3 because ⇧ + 3 = £.
People refer to an "option" key but on current UK keyboards it's labeled "alt ⌥" which I'm fine with as most other keyboards have "Alt" and "Alt GR" and ⌥ is what's used in the menus.
2. ⌃ is labeled "ctrl" but hey, look at any non-Apple keyboard. I would have preferred 'ctrl ⌃'.
If you don't like the US keyboard and you're using English, I recommend a UK keyboard or you could buy a Sharpie.
@Josh. Actually, any newer Apple Keyboard, like the notebooks or the new BlueTooth keyboard, all you have to do for forward delete is Fn+Backspace.
Thank you! I was so lost as to how to find those symbols.
I'm late to this discussion, but it is obviously ongoing. I'm grateful for the info, and particularly for the graphic reference to the chart by Dan Rodney. Just as a corporate culture comment, I spent a number of years working for a large insurance company so I've seen things like this happen. When a company is young and small, decisions are made by a small number of people, all of whom understand the philosophy and know every one whose process might impact decisions. Over time, people leave, new people come in, areas of responsibility originally controlled by one department move to some other department which has a different outlook. Every 10 years or so, maybe the corporation will recognize that things are de-volving & fix it -- or maybe not!
Hey thanks alot for this, i'm trying to get better at photoshop with just using the commands and it was a bit hard especially when I didn't know many of the symbols(im a new mac owner).
omg i love macs..i wish that every comp in the word was a MACCCCCC i would own them all!!
Back before the great return of Steve Jobs, all Apple keyboards had the shift and option symbols on the keyboards. You can thank him for getting rid of them.
I cant find the delete key on my mac book (english qwerty I think.
d mcintyre,
Seriously?
Is it not below the eject key? It should say "delete" on it.
Hi I just bought a mac keyboard...does anybody know if there an 'insert' button like on a PC keyboard, i.e. to erase text automatically by typing over?
thanks!!!!
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