Props to RM9 Hotkeys (for a change)

RootsMagic
1

I just succeeded in entering a 1950 census fact into RM9 for each member of a whole family group - a father, mother, and four children - without every touching the mouse. I was able to do everything with the keyboard. For the most part, all my work since the beginning of RM8 has involved a lot of switching back and forth between the mouse and keyboard. This little task was just to get the basic census fact entered with date and place. I will need to go back and enter notes, citations, and media for the census facts later.

I was in Family View. Here’s a summary my workflow, starting with the father already highlighted.

  1. Use the Enter key to go into Edit Person for the father.
  2. Use Alt-A to add a new fact.
  3. Type in enough of the name of the census fact into the search box to make the name be highlighted at the top of the list.
  4. Use the Enter key to select the fact type. The cursor is then pre-positioned to enter the date.
  5. Type in the date.
  6. Use the Tab key to move to the place.
  7. Use Ctrl-V to paste in the place name which I had pre-copied because I knew that everyone in the family would be using the same place name for the 1950 census
  8. Use Alt-F4 to close the Edit Person window. I believe this is more of a Windows function than an RM9 function. It’s not documented in RM’s list of hotkeys. I don’t know what would happen on a Mac.
  9. Use the Down Arrow key to move from the father to the mother in Family View
  10. Use the Enter key to go into the Edit Person key for the mother. Repeat all the steps above for the mother and for the four children.

I’m a pretty happy camper on this one. It’s hard to convey how important it is to me to be able to complete tasks just with the keyboard or just with the mouse without needing to switch constantly back and forth. RM8 and RM9 have been a challenge in this regard, but this particular task went just fine. I do know from much practice that things are much more challenging when I go back into to enter notes and citations and media for the census, and I’m still trying to find ways to work more smoothly with citations and media in RM9. But as I said, I’m a happy camper on this one.

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2

Regarding #8:
Alt-F4 is indeed a Windows hotkey for closing the active window. In most Windows applications you will get a menu if you press Alt-Space where “Close” is listed as the last item in the menu with the Alt-F4 hotkey.

3

Regarding #7:
Note that newer versions of Windows allow you to paste from your clipboard history if you use the hotkey Win-V instead of Ctrl-V (or Shift-Ins) --if Clipboard history is not enabled, then you will get an option to enable it when you press Win-V.

The benefit of Clipboard history is that you are allowed to choose from more than the last item you copied to the clipboard. This is a huge benefit in many cases. It complements SpeedSearch nicely. Highly recommended!

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