Windows+Escape – a better “close window” keyboard shortcut

I have been using Windows XP (I upgraded from Vista) as my primary OS for the past 3 years. One thing I've always missed from my Mac days are keyboard shortcuts for handling windows, like the ubiquitous Cmd+W. OK, so Windows does have Alt+F4, but this was designed by a sadist. There's no way to do this with one hand that won't result in carpal tunnel.

So I got a copy of AutoHotKey and started to fix it. Here are the three essential commands in my script:

#Esc::Send !{F4}
#!Esc::Send !{n}
!Esc::WinMinimize,A

The first rmaps Windows+Escape to Alt+F4. I use this all the time. The second maps Windows+Alt+Esc to Alt+N, which lets me dismiss those “do you want to save?” dialogs. And the final one, Alt+Windows now minimizes the front window.

And this topic reminds me of one of my little-known claims to fame. I was the guy who designed the Cmd+`shortcut for cycling among the windows within an application back when I worked on Mac Outlook Express. The shortcut was picked up by Mac IE and Entourage, and then someone from the Mac OS team saw it and liked it so much, he aded it to the OS. Yay!

Comments

[David Creemer]

Aha! I like Cmd+` and use it all the time -- thanks Dave. Can I blame you for having FrontRow pop up on my face all of the time when I accidentally hit Cmd-Esc instead of Cmd-`?

And while I'm complaining, has anyone else noticed this Mac OS X Leopard "downgrade"? : In Tiger, I could hit Cmd-Tab to cycle through the open applications. That still works in Leopard of course. While holding down the Command key, I can then hit left and right arrow to pick an application instead of just repeatedly hitting tab to cycle through all applications. In many cases this is much more convenient (especially if I go past the application I wanted). In Tiger, the arrow keys would wrap -- left arrow from the leftmost application in the list would cycle to the rightmost one. In Leopard, it just stops. Grrr.