The Keyboard Lover’s Guide to IE7

Article
02/08/2006

Many are content to spend all day clicking fancy looking buttons or menu items in order to get their tasks accomplished, but those who know the correct keyboard and mouse shortcuts can often get around applications more efficiently: Browsing the web with Internet Explorer is no exception. I want to take a minute to discuss a few useful shortcuts already available in IE6 that will help you get around the web, and then list some great new shortcuts we are providing in IE7.

First: Getting around the web in Internet Explorer 6

Basic navigation

To do the following	Press this
Go Back to the last page*	Alt+Left Arrow
Go Forward to the next page*	Alt+Right Arrow
Stop the page from loading**	Escape (Esc)
Refresh the page***	F5 or Ctrl+F5
Go to your Homepage	Alt+Home
Give focus to the Address Bar	Alt+D
Add “www.” and “.com” to what you typed in the address bar before navigating****	Ctrl+Enter
Scroll down/up the web page	Spacebar / Shift+Spacebar
Close the window	Alt+F4

Others:

Some interesting hotkeys you cannot see by simply looking in the menus…

To do the following	Press this
Immediately add this site to your favorites	Ctrl+D
Open your favorites in a folder window	Shift+Click on the “Organize Favorites”menu item
Put focus on the Information Bar	Alt+N
Open a link in a new window	Shift+Click
Open the right click ‘context’ menu for the currently selected item	Shift+F10
Change the text size (will be Zoom in IE 7)	Ctrl+Mouse wheel Up/Down

* Shift+Mouse wheel up/down also navigates forward and back, so does Backspace and Shift+Backspace
** Did you know that hitting the stop button (or Esc) will also stop background sounds?
*** If F5 doesn’t refresh all content try Ctrl+F5. This ensures no content is pulled from the cache.
**** In the Preview build we also added Ctrl+Shift+Enter when focus is in the address bar. This works like Ctrl+Enter from the address bar does today but will append a suffix of your choice to the end of the string instead of “.com” (.org, .edu, .co.uk, etc…). You can change the default suffix in the Internet Options control panel.

Note: In the Preview build we have changed the pop-up blocker override key from “Ctrl to “Ctrl+Alt” in order to avoid conflicts with our new “Ctrl” tabbed browsing hotkeys

New in Internet Explorer 7

Now that we have basic navigation down, let’s talk about some cool new shortcuts in IE 7. You will notice that for features that exist elsewhere (for example: Tabbed Browsing) we put effort into maintaining consistency where possible.

Tabs:

To do the following	Press this
Open links in a new tab in the background	Ctrl+Click
Open links in a new tab in the foreground	Ctrl+Shift+Click
Open a new tab in the foreground	Ctrl+T
Switch between tabs	Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Close current tab (or current window when there are no open tabs)	Ctrl+W
Open a new tab in the foreground from the address bar	Alt+Enter
Switch to the n’th tab	Ctrl+n (n can be 1-8)
Switch to the last tab	Ctrl+9
Close other tabs	Ctrl+Alt+F4
Open quick tabs	Ctrl+Q

Zoom:

To do the following	Press this
Increase zoom (+ 10%)	Ctrl+(+)
Decrease zoom (-10%)	Ctrl+(-)
Original size (100% zoom)*	Ctrl+0

* If you are using the recent Windows Vista preview you might notice that the 100% zoom hotkey changed from Ctrl+(*) to Ctrl+0

Search:

To do the following	Press this
Go to the Toolbar Search Box	Ctrl+E
Open your search query in a new tab	Alt+Enter
Bring down the search provider menu	Ctrl+Down Arrow

Favorites Center:

To do the following	Press this
Open Favorites Center to your favorites	Ctrl+I
Open Favorites Center to your history	Ctrl+H
Open Favorites Center to your feeds	Ctrl+J

Great new mouse actions in IE7

Even with all these cool keyboard hotkeys we’ve introduced a few helpful shortcuts for mouse users as well.

To do the following with a mouse	Press this
Open a link in a background tab	Middle mouse button
Close a tab	Middle mouse button on the tab
Open a new tab	Double click on empty tab band space
Zoom the page in/out 10%	Ctrl+Mouse wheel Up/Down

Tip:
My favorite shortcuts are the middle mouse button actions to close a tab and open links in the background (Those make using tabs fast and easy).

In Summary

Internet Explorer certainly has more than just these shortcut keys. I’m sure you have some favorites I did not mention, but I hope you found something here that will make browsing the web easier for you.

Until next time, keep browsing!

- Aaron

Comments

Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Things like this make a user's browsing experience more enjoyable.

Thanks for the list.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
now if only CSS2 was as complete as the shortcuts....
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
We do quite a bit of work on the Accessibility front, and one of the issues we deal with is :onfocus events and providing more meaningful visual interfaces to web visitors who are navigating with a keyboard - either because they choose to or because they do not have the ability to use a mouse.

One of the concerns we had with IE6 was the inability to trigger certain events based on tabbing through a web interface. Using Beta 2, I don't see much change to :onfocus events. Is this on the list?

An example site is http://www.capitalhealth.ca/ (a MCMS 2000 site, FYI) where we are triggering a visual Skip to Content link for those tabbing through the interface. Although most visitors requiring this kind of feature are visually impaired and would not benefit from being able to trigger an :onfocus event that causes a visual change to the screen, visitors with physical disabilities who cannot use a mouse or expert visitors who prefer a keyboard could benefit.

Thanks for the ongoing feedback and the attention to detail in every area of IE.

We like keyboards.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
I would like to report on a very annoying IE7Beta2 Bug. Once I installed it, I can no longer view the Message History feature in MSN Messenger 7.0+ This is really annoying, for some reasons, now the XML files from the team INSIDE Microsoft is not compatible with the IE7. Aggh.. I thought that my Message History is corrupted at first. Please fix this problem as soon as possible and please let other teams inside MS tests your prdouct as widely as possible so this doesn't happen. It is just sad...
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Could you add the classic mouse gestures?
Or at least the two "right click" + "drag left" to go back and "right click" + "drag right" to go forward.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
A few points.

1. Quicktabs have to work even for a single tab. When reading I said "What a quicktabs?" <ctrl-q> [nothing happened]... CONSISTANCY PLEASE! I don't care if its only 1 tab, leave the button there, show me just the 1 tab. Leave it consistant please.

2. Ctrl+I,J,H all open in the DOCKED mode. I would prefer the floating mode at ALL times, others might prefer the docked mode. I would suggest remembering whether we docked them, and using that as the default (allowing us to also UNDOCK them, and remembering THAT as the default as well). I have never used the right docked bars simply because I find them too disruptive to tolerate (and I know people whose whole surfing experience includes the favorites docked open at all times for some myseterious screen wasting reason)

3. You always forget to mention the ZOOM SLIDER on some MS hardware that also works for zooming (nifty toy, wish I could override it for other things at times tho, but that is a matter for the intellitype team)

4. Is double clicking in the blank space to the right of the tabs to open a new tab a permanent feature?

5. The shift-f10 menu seems to be wrong in all cases. Wrong contents, wrong screen placement. Same goes for the application key. Why are you duplicating the application key btw? Has there been a keyboard made in the past 5 years without it? Has anyone ever actually used it since it came out?

6. Shift-click on organize favorites. Uh, "great", or it would be if you weren't phasing out the menu toolbar which is the only way to get there. Let me get at this throught the favorites popup and THEN we're really talking! (I am forever doing this by right clicking on the start button and selecting explore & navigating to my favorites)

7. Only thing used less than the applicaiton button is probably the middle mouse button. (actually I do use the application button, I use it as my host key in VirtualPC because it would never interfer with other keys I do use)

8. THank you for fixing the ctrl-w (which previously only closed tabs but not windows like it did in IE6)

Just some thoughts!
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Excellent. Well done on keeping these keyboard shortcuts consistent with other, open source browsers ;) (and I don't mean to be ironic, or to plug my favourite browser, I really am grateful -- you may win me back yet).
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
So how do I disable the CTRL-D "add-to-favorites" behavior? It's my one major objection to IE6.

The problem is that CTRL-D is also the "delete email" link, and I have my email on one monitor and IE on the other. It's not always clear which window has the focus, so I get random pages added to my favorites when I don't want them.

It's a royal pain to delete a favorite (requires two clicks, and popup), I'd rather not get them in the first place.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
To add one to the requested list of common mouse gestures: right click-drag + L(shape) to close the tab in focus and focus on previous/next tab.

This would be of tremendous help, as finding that little X is another royal pain.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
"Great new mouse actions in IE7"???? oh please try Opera... Mouse gestures are great, quick and efficient
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Question: Will some of these shortcuts also apply to the WebBrowser control as well?

The code to prevent shortcuts like F5/Ctrl+F5, Ctrl+P, etc., from running is rather sloppy. Will I need to update my code to block shortcuts like Ctrl+(+/-) for zoom?

Overall it would be great if the mechanism control over for keyboard shortcuts would be improved for hosts of the WebBrowser control.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Right-click button to the right of the tabs, and select Customize from the context menu. The buttons "Page", "Tools" and "Help" are prefixed with an ampersand (instead of having their first letters underlined to indicate ALT shortcuts, the desired effect).

Please fix.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
That should be "Right-click a button, such as 'Tools', to the right of the tabs".
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
One concern I have with the Ctrl+Q quick tabs shortcut is that this is the same shortcut that Outlook web uses for marking things as read. Quite annoying.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
"Excellent. Well done on keeping these keyboard shortcuts consistent with other, open source browsers ;) (and I don't mean to be ironic, or to plug my favourite browser, I really am grateful -- you may win me back yet)."

The Print Preview is already the stuff of genius. The "Shrink to Fit" should be separated from the zoom, though...or something like that.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Thanks for that. Some pretty handy ones. Would it be possible for you to add a shortcut that opens the favorites center as menu (that vanishes once an item is selected), rather than the full permanent panel?
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
PingBack from http://www.sahw.com/wp/archivos/2006/02/08/parecidos-razonables-atajos-de-teclado-en-ie7-vs-firefox/
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Straight from the horse's mouth over at the Internet Explorer Team Blog, here are some handy keyboard...
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Am I the only noticing the following when reading this blog in IE6?

Sometimes (=seldom, but more than once) the text-encoding auto-selection believes the web-page text-encoding isn't UTF-8, but instead Windows encoding.

This causes the word "Lover's" to look wrong.

I have not seen this on other sites.

Reloading the page fixes it - but the HTML-source is unchanged.

Is there something odd with this web-server?
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@IE Blog Commentator
<now if only CSS2 was as complete as the shortcuts....>

Yes, agreed. The important stuff, like WEB STANDARDS seems to be getting pushed aside, once again.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Does anyone else think that Middle Mouse / CTRL-Click should open the link in a new tab in the FOREground rather than bg, and then CTRL-Shift-Click can open in a new background tab?

BOb
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
IEBlog : The Keyboard Lover’s Guide to I...
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> Thanks for that. Some pretty handy ones. Would it be possible for you to add a shortcut that opens the favorites center as menu (that vanishes once an item is selected), rather than the full permanent panel?

Heard a couple of comments on this. Right now this is not in the plan, but it is a good suggestion to look into.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@Ti: The issue with the Messenger conversation history is already checked into IE and will be fixed in the next public release.

The problem is the spaces in the folder path. You can view your Messenger history by moving the conversation logs to a folder path that doesn't contain any spaces.

@Luca: There's a great mouse-gestures plugin for IE here http://www.codeproject.com/atl/MouseGestures.asp

Thanks!
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Love IE 7, REALLY want to see highlight text right click and then be able to search.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> One concern I have with the Ctrl+Q quick tabs shortcut is that this is the same shortcut that Outlook web uses for marking things as read. Quite annoying.

This is one of the hard things about introducing new functionality into IE. It is very difficult (very) to introduce new intuitive hotkeys that will not conflict with another web app. Especially since IE already takes most of the simple Ctrl+<letter> hotkeys already.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> Does anyone else think that Middle Mouse / CTRL-Click should open the link in a new tab in the FOREground rather than bg, and then CTRL-Shift-Click can open in a new background tab?

We have a setting in the tab settings to change the behavior of this actually.

Opening in the background is great for hub pages such as news sites, search results etc. when you want to continue reading the page you are on while waiting for pages to load. This is one reason the default is background. We know that some people prefer foreground first, so if you go into Tools->Internet Options->Tab Settings you can check "Always Switch to new tabs when they are created".

Hope that helps!
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
"Does anyone else think that Middle Mouse / CTRL-Click should open the link in a new tab in the FOREground rather than bg, and then CTRL-Shift-Click can open in a new background tab?"

No, because if you're opening multiple tabs in a short time you will want the shortest combination of keys to press. If you're going to open a tab in the foreground you probably aren't in a hurry so pressing an extra key shouldn't be much of a problem.

You probably are the only one who wants it the other way around.

p.s. I like these shortcuts IE Team, I may just use some of them.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Nice, very nice.

I have issues with the whole modifier+enter set, though.

1) As far as I'm aware, all existing browsers, including ie6, append the .com anyway if the version without suffix doesn't find anything, so the current ctrl+enter behaviour seems redundant.
2) To make things worse, at least two alternative browsers map ctrl+enter to the behaviour IE7 wants for alt+enter, i.e. opening the url in a new tab.
It seems that generally, IE7 aims for existing practice with its shortcuts, so I think opening in new tab should be mapped to ctrl+enter, and the current ctrl+enter-behaviour either dropped (personally I consider it useless) or mapped to alt+enter.

... OK, I just tried, and it seems alt+enter is mapped to new tab in both browsers I use too. I still think the ctrl+enter behaviour is useless.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
I think you should disable CTRL+W if there is only one tab open. Else you will close down IE
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Borland decides to spin-off Delphi via All of the Borland Bloggers&nbsp;&ndash; Hopefully it will be...
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Oh, I love IE team.
But I have a opinion about tabs:
- F2 and F3 key can action as 'Prev Tab' and 'Next Tab'. This is from Maxthon(MyIE2), and is my favourite shortcut key with F1 as 'New Tab'.

And below is what I send you a mail, but to show other people or in case when you couldn't read my mail:
1) When I click 'Tools - Toolbars - FlashGet Bar' to show FlashGet toolbar, Classic Menu Bar(File, Edit, View, ... etc) was appeared too, even 'Tools - Toolbars - Classic Menu' item didn't checked! This bug appears even when I showed 'Links' toolbar sometimes.
2) I think it'll be better if IE7 shows RSS feeds by article-by-article, like Sharpreader or newsgroup in Outlook. RSS Reader(?) of IE7b2 is too loose and opens the whole page too slowly. Of course, IE7 have not to show how many comments or trackbacks the article has.
3) It is nice to show statusbar when IE7 is in fullscreen mode, but we need to see toolbar too. Mouse-on-appear interface is not so comfortable, especially in Tab browser!
4) Classic Menu appears when Alt key was pushed. It's not so serious problem, but It really breaks its design and interface. In same reason, it may be good idea to move Information Bar(which appears when pop-up, activex, download blocked) to below of the screen. Whole page goes down too slowly when Information Bar appears on above of the screen.

And thanks for the list. There are some keys I didn't know.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> I think you should disable CTRL+W if there is only one tab open. Else you will close down IE

Actually, we had it this way originally, but changed it based on feedback. Reasoning is that Ctrl+W closes IE in IE 6, so for people who do not actually use tabs it is an easier transition to allow Ctrl+W to continue to work as they are used to.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> 1) As far as I'm aware, all existing browsers, including ie6, append the .com anyway if the version without suffix doesn't find anything, so the current ctrl+enter behaviour seems redundant.

By default IE actually goes to autosearch (your default search provider) if your term doesn't resolve to an internal server or a site. It actually goes to autosearch before trying .com etc, so only tries .com etc when autosearch fails for whatever reason. A while ago we supported keywords which did this, but that no longer is the case.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
It would be great to be able to double click on a tab to close it like Maxthon.

Is Highlight+drag and search going to be in IE7 too?
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Alt+N doesn't work in Windows XP?
What's information bar?
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@mocax: It appears when the pop-up or activex has blocked. See reference page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/ieoeoverview.mspx
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
"It would be great to be able to double click on a tab to close it like Maxthon."

You need to be really careful when assigning destructive actions to double clicks--many users don't know when to single and when to double, and commonly double click when they're supposed to single click.

Though, if it would close the tab, they'd probably learn quick.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@seth: I think only one IE must be opened. And '_blank link' can be opened as the window that could not have plural tabs, like pop-up window in IE7.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Where, exactly, in options, is the Ctrl+Shift+Enter thing?
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
"Where, exactly, in options, is the Ctrl+Shift+Enter thing?"

Tools->Internet Options, then click Languages button on General tab, then fill in the "Locale Specific suffix" near the bottom.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> you guys could at least add a option to eliminate this problem...

Seth, we have an option in the tabbed browsing options to always open pop-up windows in tabs. That should solve your problem! If you'd like you can set "Let IE decide" with this option windows that have certain restrictions on them will open in a new window, the rest in new tabs.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> Alt+N doesn't work in Windows XP?
> What's information bar?

The information bar is the gold bar that appears when a pop-up, download, or activeX control is blocked in IE 6 SP2 or greater. Alt+N will give focus to the information bar when it is present.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
> - F2 and F3 key can action as 'Prev Tab' and 'Next Tab'. This is from Maxthon(MyIE2), and is my favourite shortcut key with F1 as 'New Tab'.

For IE F1 is Help, F3 is Find Next, so we'd have to remove those shortcuts if we were to adopt the F2/F3 prev/next tab.

> 1) When I click 'Tools - Toolbars - FlashGet Bar' to show FlashGet toolbar, Classic Menu Bar(File, Edit, View, ... etc) was appeared too, even 'Tools - Toolbars - Classic Menu' item didn't checked! This bug appears even when I showed 'Links' toolbar sometimes.

Ah yes, we have a couple of known bugs on the menu appearing when other items are enabled.

> 3) It is nice to show statusbar when IE7 is in fullscreen mode, but we need to see toolbar too. Mouse-on-appear interface is not so comfortable, especially in Tab browser!

You can right click on the toolbar and remove the checkmark from the 'Auto-Hide' entry which will give you the desired behavior. Right click on the full screen button in the top right corner if you are having trouble getting the correct context menu.

> 4) Classic Menu appears when Alt key was pushed. It's not so serious problem, but It really breaks its design and interface. In same reason, it may be good idea to move Information Bar(which appears when pop-up, activex, download blocked) to below of the screen. Whole page goes down too slowly when Information Bar appears on above of the screen.

We've heard some performance concerns with the information bar. We're making a slight change to the animation that should help out here.
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@IE team--
Have you changed .sv to .se (Sweden) when using Ctrl+Enter?
Because in IE6 when I type for example aftonbladet and then hit Ctrl+Enter I get http://www.aftonbladet.sv which is suppose to be http://www.aftonbladet.se
Last I read about this, was that you had it so hardcoded it was almost impossible to change (read it in a swedish magazine years ago so I'm not sure about the almost impossible part, since they probably never spoke to you guys).
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
Great work guys!

Xepol: I think people are only complaining because as an OS, the same type of apps in Windows should the same shortcuts for the same thing as it makes the user-experience that much more friendly. If they choose to try another application, in this context going back to IE7 from Firefox, they want things to behave the same or very similarly and they're more likely to switch if they feel at home using the same key-commands. Just my thoughts on the matter anyways :)

I'm waiting for the final version before checking anything as I'm going to have to check sites in IE6 for years to come as it'll have a far larger audience than IE7 for a good while.

Incidentally, why does the 'Remember Me?' option not work? I'm not blocking cookies etc. Using Firefox 1.5.0.1 btw.

Cheers!
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
When reviewing feed items:

On my machine, "Open links in a new tab in the background - Ctrl+Click" doesn't work. It opens the tab in the foreground which is a real pain. A middle button mouse click (the wheel on my Logitech mouse) just gives me that icon which means I can scroll around the page by moving my mouse - which doesn't work anyway!
Anonymous
February 08, 2006
@Paul S--
I think you need the save forms option checked for that to work.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
3 questions

1-
"Scroll down/up the web page Spacebar / Shift+Spacebar"
Is this a mistake? Shouldn't that be down/up arrow keys ? and PgDn/PgUp keys? and Home/End keys?

2-
I do not see many other keys like Home and End, Ctrl+Home, Ctrl+End and what they do

3-
"
Open links in a new tab in the background Ctrl+Click
Open links in a new tab in the foreground Ctrl+Shift+Click
Open a new tab in the foreground Ctrl+T
"

What about when links are coded with "javascript:" pseudo-protocol? Or even as"#" with an onclick event handler?

This is a very important issue to tackle with evangelisation because it is widely known that "javascript:" pseudo-protocol links interfere with tab-browser advanced features like
Open links in a new tab in the background/foreground.

As I said already in your Channel9.InternetExplorerStandardsSupport page:

"javascript:" pseudo-links are a bad way to create DHTML because

* a) they break accessibility and they fail when javascript support is disabled for various reasons (like: security, corporation policies, public access, text browsers, etc.),
* b) they interfere with the process of indexing webpages by search engines,
* c) they break in assistive technologies and/or other web-aware applications (PDA),
* d) they confuse advanced browser features (middle-click, Ctrl+click), etc.
* e) they also interfere with "mouse gestures" features implemented in browsers.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
PingBack from http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/09/internet-explorer-7-keyboard-shortcuts/
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
PingBack from http://blog.23corner.com/2006/02/09/1254/
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
we all need and love keyboard shortcuts,
but IE7 should provide a way to disable and
modify them to personal preference.

this due to potential conflicts with
other shortcut tools (e.g., BHO or
desktop-wide) one may be using.

as a general rule,
i have found both as a developer and a user,
whenever you come up with a feature,
you end up having to provide an option to
defeat it.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Can you guys add a new tab in internet options to re-bind keys and mouse combinations to our liking?

maybe implement a "about:config" that exposes hidden tweaks.
In this way, you won't get people pestering you to change hotkeys/buttons all the time, we can DIY.

oh yea, can you replace the awful looking auto-scroll icon (the one that appears when you middle-click on a page)?
get something more pleasant like the one in Firefox or the square Seamonkey one. Well, unless Vista has an awesome looking one.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
OK, say, I'm using tabs now. Why I cannot Shift-Click the link and have it opened in a background tab instead of new window? Why I should always think on my actions in browser? I already switched from windows to tabs, why new windows open?
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Is image toolbar (save, print buttons, etc) gone in IE7?
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
PingBack from http://www.leonelson.com/blog/2006/02/ie-7-keyboard-guide.html
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
As has been mentioned, adding mouse gestures would be nice. I got used to them pretty quickly and nowadays i don't usually lift my hadn from mouse when brwosing.
Here's how Opera implements them http://www.opera.com/features/mouse/. Since they have been first to use them so far it can be considered standard.
For comparison, here's the list of Maxthon mouse gestures:
Double Click on Tab Bar = New Blank Tab
Gesture: Down = Scrolls One Page Down
Gesture: Down, Left = Close All Tabs
Gesture: Down, Right = close Current Tab
Gesture: Left = Back
Gesture: Right = Forward
Gesture: Right, Left, Right = Close Current Tab
Gesture: Up = Scroll One Page Up
Gesture: Up, Down = Refresh
Gesture: Up, Left = One Tab to the Left
Gesture: Up, Right = One Tab to the Right
Of course new gestures can be added, and existing ones modified but I guess you would like to have 2 things on mind. 1. IE specific features - mouse gesture that opens Quick Tabs - how nice would that be? 2. KISS (keep it simple stupid) by default :)
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
I don't know where to put it... so i leave my comment here:

- Why is it not possible to minimize IE7 to the tray? In combination with Desktop Alerts like in Outlook 2003 it could be a very nice feature for RSS...

- Thanks for your artikle, i enjoyed reading it and tried several shortcuts
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
I'd like to have a shortcut in IE7 for the PAGE > TEXT SIXE > SMALLER/GREATER

Does anyone know if this?
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Может с мышкой и лучше играть в какой-нибудь трёхмерный шутер, но работать в Win
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Would be nice if shortucts were more customizable, such as changing / disabling abilities and changing the prefix and suffix that get added with ctrl+enter; maybe even have a few dif. ones, like ctrl+alt+<number> or someting, so people can have a few dif. types of addresses...
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Have no use for adding .com to addresses. Would rather need other suffixes with Ctrl+Enter which is better than Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
BTW: where is the option to change behavour of Ctrl+Shift+Enter?
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Looking for the new IE7 keyboard shortcuts?&nbsp;
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/08/527702.asp...
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Hopefully even after all these comments, you're still reading them.

I wholeheartedly agree that middle-clicking links and tabs is the best way to interact with the browser - this is how I've been using Firefox all this time, and Avant Browser before that.

It's a little bit broken in IE7, though. It's inconsistant. If I have my Links bar showing (which I do), an I middle-click on a folder full of links, I don't get the expected behavior. It SHOULD open all the contained links in tabs. What happens is that it opens a seperate window full of .lnk files, which is completely unintuitive. The same goes for the Favorites window on the left. Middle-clicking on a whole folder of shortcuts in there does nothing, but you have to left-click the little arrow to open the whole group of shortcuts in new tabs. Again, it's breaking the metaphor set up by the browser's behavior in normal web surfing.

Please, IE team, make it so that a middle-click opens a link in a new background tab and a folder of links in a whole bunch of background tabs, EVERYWHERE in the browser.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Great post.

The only thing I can thing of that I would like to see change is that the functionality of ctrl-click and ctrl-shift-click should be swapped. That is, make open new tab in foreground window == ctrl-click, and make open new tab in background window == ctrl-shift-click.

I am more likely, more often to open a new link in a forground tab than a background tab, and it should be the simpler keystroke sequence.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
It would be nice if shortucts were completely customizable. I often wonder why there are so few options in IE7 who care about the look and feel...why can't I cange CTRL+E (search) to CTRL+F f.e.?
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
Few points I'd like to share:

1. Regarding the "Close current tab" command, why can't it be "Ctrl+F4" which is more of a standard way of closing current window instead of the strange "Ctrl+W"?

2. Switch between tabs is one of my most used function among all tab enabled browsers. "Ctrl+Tab" is certainly very useful, however if you have like 10+ tabs opened at the same time it becomes hard to use. What I often used in this situation is the command to "Switch to adjacent tab" - in other words, "previous tab" and "next tab". The hotkeys for these two would be "Ctrl+ArrowLeft" and "Ctrl+ArrowRight".

I'm sure it's no big deal from an implementation point of view to add these two hotkey mappings, but it'll just make the overall browsing experience a much better one.
Anonymous
February 09, 2006
PingBack from http://www.mjtnet.com/blog/2006/02/10/the-keyboard-lover%e2%80%99s-guide-to-ie7/
Anonymous
February 10, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 10, 2006
I would like when giving focus to the search textbox all the text is selected in order to enter quickly a new search.
Anonymous
February 10, 2006
I believe Ctrl+W is now the "standard" shortcut for closing windows (not applications).
Similar to how Ctrl+C/X/V replaced the Shift+Delete, Shift+Insert keys of past.
Anonymous
February 10, 2006
IE7 non works with italian key : è , ì , à ?

GRRRHHH!!!
ivan@arcmedia.it
Anonymous
February 10, 2006
Great tips, thanks. Can we have them as a downloadable, printable (PDF) reference sheet? I want to have them on the wall in front of me until they are burned into my typing habits.
Anonymous
February 11, 2006
You guys did a great job on keyboard lover. But I really need you guys to work on mouse gesture. I have this habit of open new tabs when opening a list of links. Clicking middle button won't do it. I need an easier mouse gesture, like clicking on the link and move the mouse slightly. - been using Maxthon.

One more thing, clicking 'E-mail inbox' in MSN Messenger 7.5 seems to open a new window of IE, instead of tab in a pre-opened window. Can you collaborate with the Messenger team to fix that?
Anonymous
February 12, 2006
Hello to IE7 team,
I red about one feature what could be good in IE7 – URL alias. When I write to URL bar for example “s”, browser will replace “s” with “http://search.msn.com” (or “g” with “http://www.google.com”). It is much faster than long writing. Thank you.
Anonymous
February 12, 2006
In IE6, I was able to highlight part of the url and use the Edit/Copy menu to copy part of the url. In IE7, I can no longer do this.

Can you fix this so that I can copy a whole or partial url using the menu Edit/Copy?

Thanks,
Neil
Anonymous
February 12, 2006
Vaclac:

Already IE6 had aliases:

In IE's adress bar you can write the name of any of your favorites and it goes there. (Use if you use folders).

So add Google as a favorite with the description 'g'.

Simply isn't it?
Anonymous
February 13, 2006
I'd like to have a shortcut in IE7 for the PAGE > TEXT SIze > SMALLER/GREATER

I second that. Or have a button that directly gives you a menu of text size selection, like in IE6. That was probably the most used button I had on IE6. You need this because you've changed the CTRL+MouseWheel function.
Anonymous
February 13, 2006
I have a site opened in an active tab, how to I open a second identical tab? Is there a shortcut to do that?
It would be nice if I could drag the URL from the address bar to an empty new tab.
Thanks
Anonymous
February 13, 2006
I'd like to have a shortcut in IE7 for the PAGE > TEXT SIze > SMALLER/GREATER

Yes. Microsoft guys may not know this but Eudora changes the font size on IE to a smaller size. I constantly have to readjust this setting. Is there any way you can optionally "lock it" so that another application (Eudora) doesn't change the font size? This is true for all version of Eudora back to the furthermost reaches of time, btw.
Anonymous
February 13, 2006
If I have two IE7 browser windows open, is there a way I can move (maybe drag) the content window from the 2nd session into a new tab on the first window?

Two reasons I ask:

1. I use a dual monitor display, and run an instance of IE on each physical monitor.

If I open something in a tab in monitor A, somtimes I want to keep it open but move it over to monitor B.

2. Sometimes I can't right-click on a hyperlink and "open in new tab". When I'm forced to see a new IE window open, I'd like to be able to move the content back into a tab and have only one IE window open with multiple tabs only.
Anonymous
February 14, 2006
What is the shortcut for print preview?
Anonymous
February 14, 2006
The kbd shortcut that I would love to see is "jump to first visible tabstop". I'm so tired of scrolling halfway down a long document, hitting tab, and having IE scroll all the back to the top. It really hinders kbd-based browsing.
Anonymous
February 14, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
February 15, 2006
Nobody, including MS!, mentions shift+enter! In IE7 and FireFox this appends the .net domain to the url.
Anonymous
February 15, 2006
Please remove the last remark (about the shift+enter), I found out this was not true! It only work in FF... sorry.
Anonymous
February 15, 2006
I tried IE7 Beta 2 for a few days last week, then uninstalled it chiefly because it killed off the use of Ctrl+Mouse wheel up/down for text resizing NOT ONLY inside IE7 itself BUT ALSO inside other applications!

Just one example of such other applications is the Eudora e-mail client. (I've been using Eudora since 1993 or thereabouts, before Internet Explorer even appeared on the scence in WOndows 95, and continue to use it because for me it has some handy features and behaviour that Outlook doesn't.) This app renders incoming messages in either text or HTML. Just as on a large proportion of Web sites, incoming mail in HTML format often displays in text that's too tiny to easily read. Because IE7 kills off the ability to use the Mouse wheel to resize HTML text, this alone was unbearable enough caused me to uninstall IE7 after a day or two. (I found everything else in IE7 Beta 2 was fine and excepet for the Mouse Wheel gaffe was prepared to keep using using it more or less indefinitely.)

The moral of the story is "little things mean a lot" and you seem to have been rather capricious in breaking this keyboard shortcut established in IE6 (or earlier, was it).

With IE6 installed, this shortcut also works just fine in other apps like Eudora which use Microsoft's HTML-rendering engine, but with IE7 installed this nice capability has been taken away from us.

So, "do no harm" ... Keep the current IE6 behavior of Ctrl+Mouse wheel for changing text size, and use something such as Ctrl+Shift+Mouse wheel for zooming.
Anonymous
February 16, 2006
For some reason, I am unable to get ctrl-click to open the clicked link in a new tab... it opens it in a whole new window. Not what I wanted at all! I think I may have tweaked a setting somewhere along the way in an earlier version of IE, but I have no idea what it might be.
Anonymous
February 17, 2006
Have you ever noticed that scrollbar in the pinned favorites sidebar won't respond to mouse wheel just after a page starts loading. This is not the case in Firefox and Netscape. My mouse is MS notebook optical wheel mouse:)
Anonymous
February 19, 2006
These shortcuts are undoubtedly great, except for one thing. I am using several keyboard - Czech and English - and I used to switch in between them by ctrl/enter or alt/enter. Neither of these things work with the main window of IE7, and other combination of keys can't be chosen in Control Panel / Regional Settings. Do you have a solution? If you do, send me a comment to motl at feynman.harvard.edu. Thanks, Lubos
Anonymous
February 19, 2006
I apologize for some typos. The keys switching between languages are, of course, ctrl/shift or alt/shift. The word "enter" was a typo. Also, I forgot to propose a fix. In my opinion, the right behavior should simply be that if you press ctrl/shift or alt/shift, the new IE7 actions modifying the way how the new windows would be opened would still apply, but it would also switch in between the keyboards or languages at the same moment. I am pretty sure that the people who use the keys to switch between the keyboards don't want to give up their key combination, like me. On the other hand, the people who don't use these keys to switch languages will be able to use the new meaning of the keys. In my opinion, these meanings can co-exist. Even if I were using the keys for both functions, it would not be a big problem if the keyboard switched to the new language for a new window, especially because it is very easy to switch it back - unlike now when switching the keyboards with IE7 is extremely time-consuming.
Anonymous
February 21, 2006
I had been using the "Ctrl+Shift" key sequence for switching between input languages. But it fails with IE7, what's the matter?
Anonymous
February 22, 2006
I always wanted a keystroke that put the current page address in the clipboard. It would be great for blogging and other page development where you link to other sites.
Anonymous
February 22, 2006
Xh.deng,

It is a bug. We've fixed it in the builds so you shouldn't run into it when the Beta 2 build is released.

- Al Billings [MSFT]
Anonymous
March 22, 2006
I found a blog entry on the Internet Explorers Team Blog with all the shortcuts in Internet Explorer...
Anonymous
April 07, 2006
I'm loving the work many of my former teammates (I was an IE PM working on DHTML's programmibility from...
Anonymous
June 14, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://newyear2006.wordpress.com/2006/06/24/tastenkurzel-im-internet-explorer-7/
Anonymous
June 30, 2006
Hello, this is Kelly Ford, a test lead on the IE team and a big keyboard user of Internet Explorer....
Anonymous
June 30, 2006
&nbsp; Hello, this is Kelly Ford, a test lead on the IE team and a big keyboard user of Internet Explorer....
Anonymous
July 06, 2006
Talking to others who have upgraded to Build 5456 of Vista, it is clearly better than the Original Beta...
Anonymous
July 13, 2006
Aaron over at the IEBlog posted a great compilation of IE 6/7 keyboard shortscuts back in February, but...
Anonymous
August 24, 2006

My name is Seth McLaughlin and I have been working as a Program Manager intern on the User Experience...
Anonymous
October 15, 2006
Since we now know that Internet Explorer 7.0 is coming out this week I thought I would post to links
Anonymous
November 02, 2006
PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2006/11/02/resolution-to-my-ie-ctrl-d-problem.aspx
Anonymous
June 26, 2007
Straight from the horse's mouth over at the Internet Explorer Team Blog , here are some handy keyboard
Anonymous
September 24, 2007
free music video codes myspace tilly and the wall
Anonymous
October 01, 2007
PingBack from http://ericy.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/ditching-the-mouse/
Anonymous
December 19, 2007
Pessoal, trago agora uma dica para aqueles que são amantes dos atalhos de teclado e se orgulham de conseguir...
Anonymous
December 19, 2007
Amigos, volto a falar de IE neste post para compartilhar com vocês links de artigos importantíssimos...
Anonymous
February 09, 2008
PingBack from http://www.etixet.com/keyboard-lovers-guide-to-ie-7.html
Anonymous
February 17, 2008
PingBack from http://software.hane.us/keyboard-lovers-guide-to-ie-7.html
Anonymous
March 24, 2008
PingBack from http://www.bit-shift.net/PermaLink,guid,b52aaacf-4ec3-4d78-9885-1fbc06aaae6e.aspx
Anonymous
April 17, 2008
PingBack from http://larry.thefreetvnews.com/ie7locksupwithsecondtabopen.html
Anonymous
April 18, 2008
[2 blogs ago (back on what is now windows-now.com), I blogged about the IE7 Search Bar + Open Search
Anonymous
May 18, 2008
PingBack from http://gillian.clearviewlearning.info/loversguide.html
Anonymous
June 05, 2008
Many are content to spend all day clicking fancy looking buttons or menu items in order to get their tasks accomplished, but those who know the correct keyboard and mouse shortcuts can often get around applications more efficiently: Browsing the web wit
Anonymous
June 27, 2008
PingBack from http://mariela.ifarmmarket.com/controlshortcutsforscreenplacement.html
Anonymous
July 26, 2008
Tip of the Day #5 (Keyboard Shortcuts in IE)
Anonymous
August 03, 2008
PingBack from http://skylar.freepicturenews.info/keyboardshortcutsininternetexplorer.html
Anonymous
August 13, 2008
PingBack from http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ten-tech-solutions-to-improve-your-productivity/
Anonymous
August 14, 2008
PingBack from http://recycleemail.com/uncategorized/ten-tech-solutions-to-improve-your-productivity/
Anonymous
October 09, 2008
PingBack from http://clintlalonde.net/2008/10/06/14-tips-for-better-web-surfing/
Anonymous
January 17, 2009
PingBack from http://www.hilpers.it/1867530-i-e-7-e-ctrl
Anonymous
May 29, 2009
PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=ieblog-the-keyboard-lover-s-guide-to-ie7
Anonymous
June 08, 2009
PingBack from http://insomniacuresite.info/story.php?id=6743

Share via

The Keyboard Lover’s Guide to IE7

Comments

Additional resources