Tog insists that professional users discard the evidence of their own decades of experience using a computer in favor of the results of his stopwatch but not only declines to show his exact results and methods but declines to even conduct an experiment which looks even slightly like a professional computer using completing a task preferring a nonsensical exercise that appears designed to be automated for even greater savings. I think others have done far too good a job debunking this obvious misunderstanding for me to add much on that front thus I'd like instead to ask a different question. Users who can program the computer to automate tasks can escape online advertising and tracking in ways that others cannot. Truly, the only significant difference between the two is that it is far more difficult to manipulate, analyse and serve ads to "bots" and charge advertisers money for it. Automation is taken as a signal "it's a bot". The mouse is taken as a signal "we have a human on the line". Of course, the "tech" company model of the world needs users to not be programmers. Generally no one (seriously) programs a computer exclusively with a mouse. ![]() I will give you $50 million for your efforts. Try doing everything your computer does by hand. (Obviously for some tasks, e.g., ones involving graphics, we need a mouse.) Doing that with the mouse is beyond awkward it's counterintuitive. I can automate repeated tasks with the keyboard. (The office being the exception but I still use it minimally.) Then muscle memory totally breaks you need to learn two sets of keybindings for the same context, and that introduces a hesitation for every keypress, which kills speed and enjoyment. about: or view-source:) where it doesn't work at all, or doesn't work consistently so one must disable it. 99% of the time it works perfectly, but then there are the handful of sites or browser specific pages (eg. I've tried tridacyl and other vim-style plugins for browsers several times in the past, but always end up uninstalling them in disappointment, because it's not possible to have a consistent experience. I can't build muscle memory or be confident using a feature if it only works 90% of the time. I've found that a feature or shortcut is only useful if it's consistent. Your comment on '"Ctrl+F" instead as I'm too scared to try "/" now' really resonated with me, because I've thought about this before. My point was going to be that consistency is key. the 'modern' web is pain.Īnyway, this wasn't going to be a rant. It's not just overridng default shortcuts, but custom context/rightclick menus, custom 'links' (where clicking them runs javascript code to window.open, instead of being a real link), custom form fields that advertise 'excellent accessibility', where the fields would have been accessible anyway if they didn't decide to reimplement them, disabling text selection, overriding focus styles because the accessible styles 'look ugly'. So many sites seem to feel the need to reimplement things that are already part of most browsers or even in the spec. We’ve highlighted shortcuts that are either used across multiple apps or Gdocs specifically.> Unfortunately this is broken on the "modern" web as many web pages "helpfully" override the "/" keyĪrgh this kind of thing makes me really cross. However, much of what’s discussed here can be used in other text editing programs such as Microsoft Word. This guide was specifically created for editors working within Google Documents on Windows-based computers. With that in mind, here’s a list of shortcuts and techniques that can help editors - and even writers - be as efficient as possible. As such, any tool that can save them time is a welcome addition. A day’s worth of work can be saved within 6,000 edits.Įditors are traditionally time-poor, often working to tight deadlines. To me, this is as essential to an editor as touch typing is to a writer.Īlthough using shortcuts to save a second two at a time might seem a little underwhelming at first, its true potential blooms when viewing it at scale.įor example, if every shortcut saves around 5 seconds, then editors can save an hour and 20 minutes over the course of 1,000 edits - a more than realistic figure for a particularly troublesome piece. The greatest time-saver I’ve found for editing is a little-known technique: mouse-less editing. In his spare time, he works on his fiction and art blog. Thomas Bellink is a freelance writer and editor in the B2B space.
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