01-19-2009, 09:35 AM

On a mac Pro.
Tried to use Force Quit today in the apple store on a frozen iWeb window.

The chap in the shop could show me how to do it using the mouse and menu bar, and the dock, but no one could work out the keyboard shortcut for it

From the menu window drop down list it shows Option-Command and another symbol that no one could find on the keyboard. From the keyboard shortcut list here on this forum it appears to be the Escape key, but which one is it....anyone have a link with a photo of a keyboard pointing to the relevant key. From my experience in the apple store today this seems like a key combination that is going to get a lot of use.

01-19-2009, 12:38 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by "which one is it". There's only one Escape key.... top left corner of your keyboard. If you meant "is it the Escape key or not"... it is. Holding down OPT-CMD-ESÇ would have verified that for you.

01-19-2009, 01:16 PM

Yes, I did mean what is the position of the key on the keyboard, so it is in the traditional place. Thanks,

If you take the mouse cursor to the menu bar and view the three symbols used to Force Quit, it does not use the words OPT-CMD-ESÇ it uses symbols.

The OPT and CMD symbols correspond to the symbols printed on the keys on the keyboard, the ESC key symbol does not appear on the Mac Pro keyboard. Do not even think I saw ESC printed on a key.
The guys in the Apple store did not recognise the symbol either.

I have seen a thread saying:
"My sources tell me that all future macs will no longer have an "escape" key on the keyboard."..........although the rest of the thread seemed total rubbish

so maybe that has been implemented,

Anyway thanks

Neil

01-19-2009, 03:02 PM

At least in Leopard, if you open the Force Quit window, it actually says at the bottom, "You can open this window by pressing Command+Option+Escape." (Using that spelling.)

01-20-2009, 02:49 PM

That would of been good, if they had use the ESC word rather than the symbol......or put the symbol on the keyboard

01-20-2009, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by NeilP

That would of been good, if they had use the ESC word rather than the symbol......or put the symbol on the keyboard

Yeah... that is kinda annoying. I've often thought about buying one of these Matias keyboards just for that reason. They have the symbols imprinted on the key caps... even the extended character sets.

01-21-2009, 02:54 AM

My aluminum keyboard has the ESC symbol on the escape key (3/4 of a circle with an arrow)

08-20-2009, 09:04 AM

For some time I have not been able to use the force quit shortcut on my macbook. I have tried to re-add the shortcut in system preferences under finder and under all applications, but the shortcut will not stick. Any ideas? If it helps I am using Leopard.