keyboard shortcut
Sign in to saveAlso known as bind, key bind, key binding, keyboard combination, key combination, key shortcut, shortcut, keybinding
special computer keystroke that triggers a command
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Firefox 3.0 menu with shortcuts, highlighted with green and mnemonics highlighted with yellow Composite of two Macintosh Finder menus with keyboard shortcuts specified in the right column In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most operating systems and applications come with a default set of keyboard shortcuts, some of which may be modified by the user in the settings.
Keyboard configuration software allows users to create and assign macros to key combinations which can perform more complex sequences of actions. Some older keyboards had a physical macro key specifically for this purpose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “keyboard shortcut” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.