Mac Gems Promising Prospect: Shortcat replaces mouse clicks with keyboard presses

Nearly two decades after it first made an appearance on my desk, the mouse has yet to gain my favors. Modern graphical-user interfaces (GUIs) make its use practically mandatory, but I use it only when I have no other choice.

My dislike for pointing and clicking is not just a matter of reliving the good old days, when the only way to use computers was to type for hours on end—uphill, both ways—but rather a simple consequence of the fact that, unlike the mouse or trackpad, a keyboard gives me haptic feedback that allows me to type without looking.

I mention all this to help explain why Shortcat caught my eye. This little utility promises to let you use the keyboard to perform many operations, such as clicking textual links on a Web page, that normally require a pointing device.

Shortcat adds a systemwide menu to your menu bar (though you can turn this off) and lets you choose a global keyboard shortcut (I stuck with the default Command+Shift+Space). When you press that shortcut, Shortcat displays a small text-input box at the bottom of the screen.

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