Shortcut key
Here, the term key means a button on your computer keyboard.
A shortcut key is a key used to quickly perform an operation that you frequently use. On an Apple computer, pressing the [command] key in combination with the [S], or ⌘S, will save your current work to your computer hard drive. The equivalent on a PC is [Controle]+[S].
Pushing two keys at the same time is much quicker than using your application menu and going — but obviously using the application menu is more intuitive so learn the shortcut keys only for commands you often use.
Below is how I show which special keys to use.
| Apple | PC (if different) | Used here |
| shift | ⇧ | |
| tab | ⇥ | |
| control | Windows | ⌃ |
| alt (or option) | alt | ⌥ |
| command | control | ⌘ |
| enter or return | ↩ |
So, for example ⌥⌘2 is
— alt (or option)+command+2 on an Apple computer
— alt+control+2 on a PC.
Rollover
When navigating with a touchpad or mouse, you can move the cursor (the pointer) over something like an icon without clicking on it — this is called rollover (called also mouse over or just hover).
Very often this triggers a reaction like a pop-up description, as shown in the example below.
Note that this cannot work on a touch-screen device like a smartphone, because on a touch-screen you can only click (press) but not hover.