How to use Opera without a mouse

This presentation is optimized for interactivity with the Opera browser. (In addition, you can use the OperaShow feature in Opera 4 or Opera 5 to view the embedded slide show in this document.)

If you are using another browser, of course, you will not be able to interact fully with this tutorial because of the unique keyboard functionality of Opera.

Regardless of your current choice of browser, read on about how to use Opera without a mouse...

Surf with only a keyboard? Why?

• overcome physical limitations
• alleviate repetitive strain
• gain SPEED and POWER - come fly with Opera!

This document assumes some familiarity with general Windows keyboard shortcuts and goes on to detail the uniqueness of Opera's complete keyboard-only navigation. For more basic info, see the Appendix.

Key notes:

This document uses a stylistic manner to represent each particular keypress, for example: G, and key combination such as Ctrl+G.

At any time while using Opera, you can use the key combination Ctrl+B to open Opera's Keyboard Shortcuts page for a comprehensive reference.

F1 opens the Opera Help files.

Esc closes any dialog box.

And when the keyboard focus is on a document window, Esc will stop the loading of that document.

We'll start with an introduction to the basic keypresses needed for getting around the Opera interface. Since we are navigating without a graphical cursor, it is necessary to understand how the keyboard focus works. The Opera interface consists of several major parts; document windows, the menu, context menus, the button bar, the progress bar, and the Hotlist pane.

• To put the keyboard focus into the active document window, press F9.
• To focus on the address window, use F8.
• To load and activate the Hotlist pane, press F7.
• (Toggle Hotlist window off and on F4.)

There is a keypress substitute for each of the toolbar button functions, although there is no need for the toolbar to be visible. You can turn off the button bar completely to gain more screen space. (Choose from the menu: View - Button bar - Off). This can also be done from the keyboard. Just as in other applications on this platform, Alt activates focus on the menu. See the appendix for more menu info.

Learning to live without the button bar...
is a little easier if you are already familiar with some common system and MDI shortcuts, although more than half of them are shortcuts that are unique to Opera. Working without the progress bar visible is also possible. To toggle the progress display off and on, use CTRL+F8. The complete lists of button bar functions and their key equivalents and progress bar functions and their key equivalents are in the appendix. Shortcuts for these functions are mentioned throughout relevant sections of this document.

In addition, wherever you are in the Opera interface, you are bound to find a local context menu (the right-click menu) which pops up with a click of the mouse on the right button when the cursor is hovering over an element of the program interface. Using the keyboard, the command Ctrl+M will display a context menu when the keyboard focus is 1) in a document window, 2) on elements within the document window, 3) in the Hotlist pane, or 4) on an element within the Hotlist pane. The context menus are navigable using the directional arrow keys, and offer options and shortcuts for many functions.

Opera's fullscreen mode, otherwise known as OperaShow can be activated using F11, and deactivated using the same keypress, or alternately using a quick double tap on Esc.

The primary function of a browser is to load and show documents. With Opera you can choose to browse with one open document window, or multitudes. We'll start with one, and the shortcuts that you need to be able to work with it without using a mouse.

To load a document from a local drive, use Ctrl+O. To directly load an external URL, press F2. If your progress display is showing, or if you simply prefer using the address window, you can directly enter the URL after tapping F8.

Toggle image loading on the page at any time using the three-way toggle key G. Equally useful is the document/user mode toggle CTRL+G, and print view is simply P. To view the document source, use Ctrl+F3.

Reload a document with F5 or Ctrl+R. This, and other functions which are useful for loading and managing documents are available from the local window context menu, which can be accessed using Ctrl+M while the focus is on the current document.

To save the current document locally, press Ctrl+S. To print it, use Ctrl+P. And either Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4 will close the window if you wish.

Opera's zoom feature is visually accessible on the progressbar as a list of increments from 20% to 1000%. Opera's zoom feature from the keyboard offers the same range, but also includes all the stepped increments in between. You can see this impressive range if you hold down a zoom key to scan from one extreme to the other.

With the keyboard, there are 5 keys for quickly zooming a document. They are: 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0.

• zoom using 10% increments: zoom in 0 zoom out 9
• zoom using 100% increments: zoom in 8 zoom out 7
• snap page back to 100% (normal) 6

Navigating within a document is fairly straightforward. You can toggle the scrollbar off and on with Ctrl+F7 and learn to use PageUp, PageDown, Home, and End, to hop around the page, and use the four arrow keys to navigate through the text.

Other major elements within a page are also navigable. The previous or next header on the page can be found using W and S. The keys E and D do the same for text elements. The keys Q and A allow you to jump to the previous or next link on the page. (Ctrl+Down and Ctrl+Up do the same.) Once you've selected a link, Enter or Space will load the document under the active link. Alternatively, Ctrl+L will bring up the link menu (and more choices, along with shortcuts for using them).

To save a document under a link (without loading the document), use Ctrl+Shift+S. To just copy that link address to the clipboard, Ctrl+SHIFT+C.

If you need to get into a form using the keyboard, try Tab and Shift+Tab. To get out of the form, press F9, which will restore focus on the main body of the document.

Documents in frames can be confusing, but are easily handled with the keyboard. To switch between frames, press the 3 key, and navigate each framed document as you would a single one. To reload the active frame, try Alt+F5. View the frame source with Alt+F3.

History...

To display the history list for the active window, hit H. You can then select from the list using the up and down arrow keys and press Enter to return to that document. If you want the very next document in the window history use X or Ctrl+Right or Alt+Right. To get to the previous document in that window history: Z or Ctrl+Left or Alt+Left.

The keyboard shortcuts for selecting, copying, pasting, deleting, or cutting text to or from the Opera interface, and the shortcuts for searching for text within a document are standard to the Windows platform, and are listed in the appendix under Editing and searching.

Opera has a powerful multiple document interface (MDI), and Opera is very efficient with multiple open document windows. There are shortcuts for just about everything you need to do to manage multiple open documents.

• Open a new document window with Ctrl+N.
• Duplicate a window with Ctrl+Shift+N.
• Reload all documents, Ctrl+F5.
• Cascade windows, Shift+F5.
• Tile all windows horizontally to fill the workspace, F6.
• Tile all windows vertically to fill the workspace, Shift+F6.
• Restore focus on current document window, F9.
• Switch view to the next document window, 2 or Ctrl+Tab.
• Switch view to the previous document window, 1 or Ctrl+Shift+Tab.
• Minimize current document window, 4.
• Maximize current document window, 5.
• Close all open windows, Ctrl+Shift+W.

A very handy Opera feature is the Global history window. Open it with Ctrl+Alt+H.

Another fast, fun, and powerful functionality...
You can load the document under the active link into a new window using Shift+Space or Shift+Enter. If you would prefer that document to pop up in the background, so that it does not obscure the window that you are currently reading, use this instead: Ctrl+Shift+Space or Ctrl+Shift+Enter. If that window happens to yield nothing of interest, just close it with Ctrl+W.

The Hotlist pane currently consists of three components: Bookmarks, Email, and Contacts. This pane can exist in three visible states: docked, floating, or off.

• To load and activate the Hotlists pane for keyboard navigation, click F7.
• To toggle it off or on, use F4.
• To toggle state of Hotlist pane between docked and floating, use Shift+F4.
• To show and activate the Bookmarks tab, Ctrl+Alt+B
• To show and activate the Email tab, Ctrl+Alt+E
• To show and activate the Contacts tab, Ctrl+Alt+C

The context menu can be activated with Ctrl+M when the keyboard focus is on the bookmark list, the contacts list, or the email pane. The menu gives a relevant menu for each component. If an element such as a folder, sub-folder, or account folder is highlighted, the context menu will pop up with a specific menu for that element.

Jump between the elements and panes of the Hotlist using Tab. Scroll up and down the list with the up arrow and down arrow keys. To expand a folder and reveal its sub-folders and items, use the right arrow key. Close a folder using the left arrow key. To open the item or folder properties dialog box, Alt+Enter.

The Bookmark Hotlist can be sorted with a three-way toggle. With a mouse, this toggle is activated when clicking on the Title separator bar between the two panes of the bookmark list. With the keyboard, the toggle is activated with the following shortcuts when the keyboard focus is in the bookmark Hotlist. To change the sort order: by Title, Alt+1, by Last Visited, Alt+2, and by date Created, Alt+3.

There are several ways to add a bookmark using the keyboard. You can add the current window document to the currently highlighted bookmark folder or sub-folder with Ctrl+T. You can also highlight a link in a document and save the linked document using Ctrl+Shift+T.

To delete a Hotlist entry, simply highlight it and press Delete. To select all Hotlist entries, try Ctrl+A. You can cut, copy, paste, delete, and select items using the standard Windows editing shortcuts for these functions.

Other ways of directly accessing your favorite documents:

• Activate the nickname dialog for quick access to a bookmark, Shift+F2. (Nicknames can be entered in the properties dialog for each bookmark. Alt+Enter.)
• The bookmarks can also be accessed, as a list, from the menu bar using Alt+B.
• Go to the window homepage or global homepage with Ctrl+Space.

Detailed explanation of keyboard navigation throughout the Opera email program and the newsreader probably warrants the creation of another tutorial document. See the Keyboard Shortcuts page in the Opera Help for the complete list of shortcuts for Opera email and news functionality.

Listed here are some other handy keyboard shortcuts for functions that are unique to Opera.

Open the Preferences dialog directly using Alt+P.

Use the context menu on an open window, Ctrl+M, to find some treasures, such as Create linked window and Reload every... and Frame/Validate HTML.

Ctrl+J opens the Links in frame dialog box - try it!

Show/activate the Transfer window with Ctrl+Alt+T.

As mentioned in the multiple window management section, Shift+Ctrl+Enter (or Shift+Ctrl+Space) is a unique tool, and is the keyboard equivalent of the famous Shift+Ctrl+(click) feature.

Definition: A key combination is achieved by depressing and holding down the first key while simultaneously pressing the second one.

General keyboard shortcuts that apply to most Windows applications:
(See keyboard shortcuts in the Windows Help for more.)

• Open a new document window Ctrl+N
• Open a local file Ctrl+O
• Save active document Ctrl+S
• Print current document Ctrl+P
• Close window (MDI) Ctrl+F4
• Close entire application Alt+F4

Enter is the all-purpose selector key. If you can't get something to do as is described in these instructions, try hitting Enter after making your selection. Tab is usually used for jumping between elements of a program interface. Ctrl is usually used in combination with other keys for shortcuts. Alt is used in much the same manner. Shift is sometimes used as a selector, for example, when checking or deselecting checkbox options or making choices with radio-type buttons.

Ctrl+Z will undo the most recent typing in the URL or any text field or form. Ctrl+Shift+Z will redo it.

The four arrow keys which are situated at the bottom-right of most keyboards, are used for general navigation. The PageUp, and PageDown keys are usually somewhere on the right side of the keyboard as well, and serve to navigate one page at a time. Home will take you either to the top of the document or to the beginning of a line of text. End will take you either to the bottom of the document or to the end of a line of text.

All pop-up dialog boxes can be navigated using Tab, Space, Shift+Tab, arrow keys, and Enter.

Editing and searching:

• Highlight (select or mark) text using Shift+arrow keys.
• Copy marked text, Ctrl+C
• Cut marked text from text area, Ctrl+X
• Paste in text from clipboard, Ctrl+V
• Select (mark/highlight) ALL text, Ctrl+A
• Search in active document, Ctrl+F
• Find next instance of the searched entry, F3
• Find previous instance of the searched entry, Shift+F3

Just as in other applications on this platform Alt activates focus on the menu. Use the arrow keys; Left, Right, Up, and Down to navigate the menus and sub-menus. Or press the key corresponding to the underlined letter in the menu item that you wish to activate. The example given above was toggling the button bar. To do this using the keys, hold down Alt, click V, then B, and then O.

Opera button bar functions...and their key equivalents:

• Open a new document window Ctrl+N
• Open a local file Ctrl+O
• Save active document Ctrl+S
• Print current document Ctrl+P
• Copy selected text Ctrl+C
• Search document Ctrl+F
• Toggle Hotlist window on and off F4
• Fullscreen view (OperaShow) F11
• Back, previous document Z
• Reload document F5
• Forward, next document X
• Go to the Home page Ctrl+Space
• Direct input of URL F2
• Active bookmarks (must be accessed from menu)
• Tile windows vertical Shift+F6
• Cascade windows Shift+F5

The Opera progress bar consists of the following items and their keypress equivalents:

• the security icon - has no keypress functionality.
• 3-way toggle the loading of images G
• document/user mode toggle CTRL+G
• print view P
• address input window F8
• and the zoom function, as documented in the zoom section.