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With this and this in mind, what's the quickest way to keyboard-navigate to "Recently Used" in the "Places" side-pane in a (Nautilus) "Save as ... " dialog?

Currently, the quickest ( ! ) way I know of is to Shift Tab a number of times, possibly taking a shortcut along the way by hitting F6, which will save three of the many Shift Tab's.

Clearly, this is neither quick nor efficient. Any ideas?

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nutty about natty
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  • for navigating to bookmarks etc there's a different solution here http://askubuntu.com/questions/284707/in-a-save-as-dialog-whats-the-quickest-way-to-keyboard-navigate-to-tmp – nutty about natty May 04 '13 at 08:01

1 Answers1

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In my English Ubuntu 12.10, when I hold Alt, the "P" in "Places" becomes underlined. This gives the hint that Alt+P will move focus to the "Places" bar.

The accelerator might be different in another release or a localized version of Ubuntu. Also note that some characters in other labels become underlined, too -- the logic is the same here.

This works in many other dialogs in Ubuntu and Windows.

EDIT: Beyond that logic, hitting Alt+R selects "Recently used" in the "Places" bar and leaves the focus in the "Files" pane.

EDIT 2: Alt+D selects "Desktop".

nutty about natty
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krlmlr
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  • Brilliant! Hadn't crossed my mind to think of an accelerator for this... I'll leave the question open for a bit still, but this is likely to be the accepted answer! – nutty about natty Mar 18 '13 at 22:50
  • Hmm, it's still not as smooth as I'd hope: when I use **`Alt P`**, I immediately land in "**Search**"; how do I get from "Search" to "**Recently Used**"? The down arrow activates the search field, rather than focussing "Recently Used". So close, but still far away...? – nutty about natty Mar 19 '13 at 14:54
  • @nuttyaboutnatty: Not on my system. Which application are you testing? On what version of Ubuntu? – krlmlr Mar 19 '13 at 19:25
  • I'm on precise. Which application? Well, just take Firefox as an example: if I want to save the very page I'm writing this on, get to `Save as ...` dialog, hit `Alt P` to focus **Places** in side-bar. Within Places, `tmp` (currently) is selected, presumably because earlier today I downloaded a (pdf) file to `tmp`. But before downloading to `tmp`, "**Search**" was selected (don't know why; I rarely use that "Search" in Places). But even now that `tmp` is selected: how do I (quickly & efficiently) get to "**Recently Used**"? From `tmp` I'm bound to traverse (Bookmarks and) unmounted partitions. – nutty about natty Mar 19 '13 at 19:54
  • Another example: wanting to print-to-pdf (`Print to File`) from Firefox, click on `Save in Folder`, `Other...`, `Alt P` - and again land in "**Search**". – nutty about natty Mar 19 '13 at 20:04
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    @nuttyaboutnatty: Try `Alt R`, see also my edit. – krlmlr Mar 19 '13 at 20:11
  • doh! I feel quite stupid now... thx for bearing with me!! – nutty about natty Mar 19 '13 at 20:16
  • I'm still trying to find the accelerator (and/or quickest way) to select (focus) the `tmp` folder and my bookmarks, *without* having to traverse and mount other filesystems (which are in between `Recently Used`, `Home folder`, `Desktop` and `tmp`, bookmarks). Any idea how? – nutty about natty Apr 16 '13 at 05:19
  • @nuttyaboutnatty: Hit T once you are in the "Places" pane? Otherwise, I have no idea... – krlmlr Apr 16 '13 at 08:31
  • Nope, doesn't work AFAICT. Maybe I ought to start a new question for this. But Regarding your original answer: tons of thanks, helps me a lot! – nutty about natty Apr 16 '13 at 08:41
  • found a solution, posted it here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/284707/in-a-save-as-dialog-whats-the-quickest-way-to-keyboard-navigate-to-tmp – nutty about natty May 04 '13 at 08:00