Alfa

Using the keyboard

Many operations can be performed much quicker with the keyboard than with the mouse. The problem is that you have to know what keys to press. Alfa display keyboard shortcuts for some of the available commands in the menus, but there are more keys with special functions. Here is a summary.

Keys in the main editing windows

Space, Return
selects the next (or the first) place holder. With Shift it selects the previous (or the last) place holder.
Up
selects the parent of the currently selected node in the syntax tree.
Down
selects the first (leftmost) child of the currently selected node.
Left/Right
selects the smallest selectable unit to the left/right of the current node.
Meta-Left/Right
selects the left/right sibling of the current node, e.g., the next item in a sequence.
Page Up/Page Down
scrolls one page up or down. With shift, scrolls one page left or right.
Backspace, Delete
Deletes the selected item, if possible. Sometimes this causes a type error.

Keys in text entry fields

Keys in popup windows with OK/Cancel buttons

Keys in the file selection window

The buttons have keyboard shortcuts (which aren't indicated, sorry).