How tab between buttons in dialog boxes?

[Philipus]

One thing I like about Photoshop is that a lot can be done by using the keyboard. This is a great time-saver for repetitive tasks.

For instance when I save an image and have to over-write a previous file, Photoshop defaults to the Cancel button. It's not possible to tab to the OK button, which I believe it is possible to do on Windows. Instead I have to lift a hand to the mouse, find the pointer and click on the button. When editing many files this becomes annoying.

Is this an OS limitation on Mac or can such tabbing somehow be done?

Thanks in advance
Philip

[Warren Heaton]

In the System Settings for Keyboard, enable All Controls unter the Shortcuts tab.  Then you can use Tab to move between macOS dialog box options and Spacebar to activate the selecetion.

The checkbox for All Access is at the bottom of the System Setting pane after you've chosen the Shortcuts tab near the top.

[jane-e]

I didn't see your reply when I started!

~ Jane

[jane-e]

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > bottom of screen

~ Jane

[Philipus]

Thank you both very much. Apologies for the delayed reply but I didn't receive an email notification of replies.

This is great, I wasn't aware of this functionality.

The one little thing that I have found, which may be of interest to some, is that there is a difference in behaviour between the Enter key and the Spacebar. For instance, if I choose Save As and am faced by a warning that a file is about to be overwritten, Enter will activated the defaulted all-blue Cancel button, whereas Spacebar will activate the OK button which has a thin blue line around it. At least this works on CS6 and High Sierra.

[Warren Heaton]

Yes, Return or Enter should activate the default button in macOS dialog boxes whether or not Full Keyboard Access is set to All Controls or not.  Also, the Escape key or command period usually activates the "Cancel" button. 

In some cases, the first letter of each button name can be used as well.  For example, in the "Are you sure you want to shut your computer down" macOS dialog box, you can press "r" for Restart or "s" for Sleep.

Thanks for sharing your user experience, Philipus.