Posted by Shane Becker on
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganstraightedge/2793319967/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2155/2793319967_a77e4562cc.jpg"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/rands/statuses/897495068" title="I am not joking when I say ...">http://twitter.com/rands/statuses/897495068</a></p>
<p><a href="http://twitter.com/rands" title="Twitter / rands">@rands</a> was lamenting on <a href="http://twitter.com/" title="Twitter">twitter</a> about the lack of a keyboard shortcut for new row in <a href="http://www.apple.com/iwork/numbers/" title="Apple - iWork - Numbers">Numbers.app</a>. </p>
<p>Frustrating? Yes. Annoying that <a href="http://www.apple.com" title="Apple">Apple</a> leaves out such obvious shortcuts like this sometimes? Definitely, yes. Unfixable? No.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Preferences" title="System Preferences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">Keyboard & Mouse System Preference</a>, you can create your own keyboard shortcuts for any menu item in all 'standard' <a href="http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/" title="Cocoa">Cocoa apps</a> (meaning not <a href="http://developer.apple.com/carbon/" title="Carbon">Carbon apps</a> like <a href="http://photoshop.com">Adobe Photoshop</a> and <a href="http://office.microsoft.com" title="Office Online Home Page - Microsoft Office Online">Microsoft Office</a> or <a href="http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/JavaLP/JavaToMac3/" title="Bringing your Java Application to Mac OS X">Java apps</a> like... who uses Java apps). You can even do it to <a href="http://getfirefox.com/" title="Firefox web browser | Faster, more secure, & customizable">Firefox</a> with their <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/" title="XML User Interface Language (XUL) Project">stupid XUL chrome</a>.</p>
<p>I always use Command + Option + Shift + a letter/number for my custom shortcuts to avoid namespace collision.</p>
<p>It might seem like a mouthful but I use my left thumb for both Command and Option and my left pinkie for Shift, leaving three fingers on my left and my whole right hand to do one measly key.</p>
<p>You can scope your custom keyboard shortcuts to a single application (Numbers.app in this case) or make them global so that they work from any app. I used Command + Option + Shift + Down Arrow and Command + Option + Shift + Up Arrow for "Add Row Below" and "Add Row Above" respectively.</p>
<p>And you can do it, put your thumb into to it.</p>