Writer Tip: New Category Picker

02Jun08

In the Tech Preview release, we rewrote the category picker to work better for two kinds of bloggers:

People who have lots of categories
Keyboard lovers

For those who have lots of categories, there’s a filter box at the top. Fairly self explanatory. But the keyboard shortcuts are a little less obvious.

Launch category picker: Ctrl+Shift+C
Dismiss category picker: Escape

Focus starts in the filter text field. While you’re in there, you can use the following shortcuts:

Move selection up: Up-arrow
Move selection down: Down-arrow
Check/uncheck currently selected category: Enter
Check currently selected category, and dismiss: Ctrl+Enter

(For Windows Live Spaces and other blogs that only let you choose one category per post, Enter behaves the same as Ctrl+Enter.)

The idea is that you can hit Ctrl+Shift+C, type the first couple letters of the category you want, up/down if necessary, and then Ctrl+Enter. Much smoother than the old workflow: grab the mouse, scroll around, click the category, and then click away to dismiss. And if you prefer the old workflow, hey, you can still do that.