Keyboard Shortcuts I Learned From My Cat

My cat Mira is perfect, and has never done anything wrong. She also loves walking on laptop keys—both my MacBook and my wife Kathy's Windows PC.

You might think that walking on laptops is an example of Mira doing something wrong. She disagrees. And, in any case, we've both learned a lot about how our computers work because of this. Every time she walks across our keyboards she triggers some new, confusing keyboard shortcut. I wonder how she did it, but then I find out the keyboard shortcut by Googling around. Here's what I learned.

Mira Hides Important Things

Multiple times Mira has walked across my keyboard and caused most of my windows to disappear. This sends me into a panic—is my work gone?—until I click a dock icon and realize everything is still there. What happened?

It could be a few things. On the Mac the keyboard shortcut Command-Option-H hides all windows except the current one. Or maybe Mira switched virtual desktops in Mission Control—that's done with Control-Left/Right arrow key, and could make it look like all of my windows are gone.

Mira's pulled this trick off on a PC too. Windows-, (comma) hides all windows while Windows-Ctrl-Left/Right arrow key switches virtual desktops. So there's all sorts of ways for Mira to induce anxiety while also teaching us more about how our computers work. Lovely.

Mira Takes a Screenshot

I take screenshots on my Mac constantly, so it wasn't much of a surprise for me when Mira managed to trigger Command-Shift-4 to trigger taking a screenshot of a specific area on my screen.

But I didn't realize I could do the same thing on a PC: Windows+Shift+S is the keyboard shortcut for that, apparently. Now I know this, and I'm going to use it all the time.

Mira Toggles the Dock, Somehow

I usually like to hide the dock on my Mac, but Mira apparently disagrees. Once she walked over the keyboard and it stopped being hidden. Apparently she pressed Command-Option-D, which toggles whether the bar is hidden or not.

I could imagine this being even more confusing if you're the kind of person who never hides the dock—where did it go? Some might like being able to quickly toggle this, though, so I'm glad Mira showed me how to do it.

Mira Teaches Me About Accessibility

Sometimes Mira will walk over Kathy's laptop and the keyboard no longer works. Honestly, I've researched this one extensively, and I've no idea how Mira pulled that off.

But there are a bunch of keyboard shortcuts that change how typing works in Windows. Pressing the Shift key five times on Windows, for example, enables Sticky Keys, an accessibility feature that changes how modifier keys like Control, Alt, and Shift work. With this feature on, pressing Shift applies the Shift key as though it's held down, which could result in you typing in all caps. It's useful for people who can't press multiple keys at once, but confusing when enabled by a cat. Tapping Shift a second time turns off Shift lock, and you can disable the feature by tapping Shift another five times.

Another accessibility feature triggers when Mira sits on the right shift key for five seconds—FilterKeys. This feature, intended for people with hand tremors, causes the system to ignore short and repeat key presses. It's a useful feature, and I'm glad it's there, but it's a confusing thing to turn on accidentally.

It’s always fun to realize your computer can do something you didn’t know it could, even if the way you learn it is a little bit confusing. So I’m grateful to Mira, in a way, for showing me these keyboard shortcuts. But I’m also working to train her to stop walking and sitting on my laptop. Maybe someday.