Jim wrote:
I love the new panels in InDesign CS3. However for some they may be too large when open or too small when closed. I was looking for a way to expand and stash them with a keyboard shortcut. I found that Option-Command-Tab will do just that, but I would like to change that to a simpler shortcut (say F13) I cannot find where or how to change that shorcut.
The feature you’re looking for is called “Open/Close all panels in side tabs” and this feature lives in both CS2 and CS3, and on both Mac and Windows. (On Windows, press Ctrl+Alt+Tab.) But how can you change the KBSC shortcut to something else? No doubt you know about Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, but where in that dialog box will you find this feature?
The solution (and this goes for pretty much any shortcut you’re trying to track down):
- Click in the New Shortcut field and press the shortcut you’re looking for (in this case Command-Alt-Tab). You’ll see the feature name show up beneath the field. That’s how you find out the proper name for this feature.
- Click Show Set, which launches your friendly neighborhood text editor and shows you every shortcut in the program.
- Use the text editor’s find feature (probably Command-F/Ctrl-F) to search for the name. (In this case, just search for “side tabs”.)
- Scroll up the list until you see what Product Area the feature lives in. (In this case, it’s Views, Navigation.)
- Go back to InDesign, change the Product Area popup menu to the proper setting and select the feature you want.
- Change its shortcut (or add a new shortcut; remember that the same feature can have more than one shortcut). Don’t forget to click Assign before pressing OK.
By the way, if you look closely, you’ll find that there are two more shortcuts right next to this one that let you open/close the palettes/panels on just the left or right side of the screen.
Does this seem painful? I was hoping that there’d be a QuickApply or Spotlight type feature inside the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box in CS3, but there isn’t. Perhaps in CS4 we’ll be able to find features faster, but for now this is it.
Of course, I can’t let this opportunity pass to mention the InDesignSecrets keyboard shortcut poster! If you’re mostly using the default shortcuts, then you owe it to yourself to have a copy of the poster next to your desk. It’s Windows on one side and Mac on the other. We still have a few CS2 posters left, which you can buy for 30% off. The CS3 version will come off press in a week or two.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on May 15, 2007
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