The purpose of the Shift+F3 keyboard shortcut

keyboardshortcut

F3 and Cmd+F3 are two useful shortcuts on a Mac. What is the purpose of Shift+F3 and Shift+Cmd+F3?

They seem to do the exact same thing as F3 and Cmd+F3, but perform the animation much slower. What is the practical purpose for this?

Best Answer

The shift modifier has been around for most animated sequences since at least Panther (10.3). I don't know that there was ever an official reason given but it's widely assumed that it was built in at the request of Steve Jobs in order for him to highlight Expose' as he announced it to the world at the 2003 World Wide Developers Conference. You can see this announcement here, with the slow motion effect being used for the first time around the 2:00 min mark.

Mac OS X Panther - Expose demo

Given the crowd's reaction I think it's clear why Apple didn't remove it from the final version. It's always been one of those little easter eggs that Mac users use to impress their PC using friends.

So there you go, no practical purpose, just a bit of fun for Apple. You can also use shift to slow down most functions that have an animation. Minimizing windows, opening Mission Control, etc.

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MacOS – Unable to setup Command + Shift shortcut on Mavericks

You can use KeyRemap4MacBook to for example map option-shift to option-F19 and control-shift to control-F19:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L, KeyCode::F19, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_R, ModifierFlag::OPTION_R | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_R | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_R, ModifierFlag::OPTION_R, KeyCode::F19, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L, KeyCode::F19, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_R, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_R | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_R | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_R, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_R, KeyCode::F19, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Then change the shortcuts for switching input sources to option-F19 and control-F19.

Cmd + PgUp/Down shortcut to navigate through terminal tabs

Update:
The answer now reassigns Scroll to Top/Bottom to ⌥⌘PageUp and ⌥⌘PageDown.
This leaves Show Previous/Next Tab free to take over ⌘PageUp and ⌘PageDown.

Assuming your OS X runs in English, you can use this one-liner:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Scroll to Top' '~@\Uf72c' 'Scroll to Bottom' '~@\Uf72d' 'Show Previous Tab' '@\Uf72c' 'Show Next Tab' '@\Uf72d'

If your OS X runs in a language other than English, modify the command to resemble the exact menu item text for your language.

Best Answer

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MacOS – Unable to setup Command + Shift shortcut on Mavericks

Cmd + PgUp/Down shortcut to navigate through terminal tabs

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