 I have a hot take for you guys today, and that is that I think everyone should use the keyboard. Okay, so that's not a hot take at all. I've been saying that for ages. But even if you are a mouse-centric user of your computer, and most people are, I think that there are certain scenarios where you should just use the keyboard instead of using your mouse. I think this applies across the board, no matter how you use your computer. So today, what I'm going to do, just as for a simple video, I'm going to take you through five key bindings that everyone should have. Now, I'm not talking about the specific keys that you press. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what combination of keys you press to get to the desired result. I'm going to tell you what mine are, those make sense to me, but when you're coming up with your scheme for your key bindings, do what makes sense to you. That's the best part about Linux is you can do whatever the hell you want. But the point is, is that if you can kind of train yourself to use the keyboard for at least these five things, you will find yourself more efficient on Linux. So let's go ahead and jump in. So the first key binding that everyone should have is a key binding to open up the terminal. Now I know there's this whole debate in the Linux community that is kind of ongoing forever over whether or not people should even use the terminal. And personally, I'm on the side of everyone should learn how to use the terminal, but I can understand the other side where people want just to use GUI applications. The argument itself doesn't matter because eventually, no matter how dedicated you are to using a GUI application, eventually you're going to have to open up the terminal. And I think that the more you use Linux, the more often you'll get into using the terminal. It's just kind of the nature of the beast. So having a key binding to open up the terminal so that you don't have to search for the damn thing all the time is really helpful. So if you're on a tiling window manager, you know this already. But even if you're not on a tiling window manager and you're using a desktop environment like GNOME or KDE or whatever, having a key binding to open up the terminal is just really helpful. So in my case, super enter opens up a terminal. It's just the way it is. Now on Ubuntu, there's already a key binding for this. It's Control Alt and T. That will open up GNOME terminal and allow you to move on with whatever terminal commands you need to use. So I highly recommend, no matter what desktop environment slash window manager using, set up some key binding to open up a terminal. It'll be really helpful and it will keep you from having to search for the terminal in those cases where you do have to use it, whether or not you're happy about having to use it or not. So that is the first key binding. So the next one is also similarly important. Now probably the number one thing everyone does on their computer is launch applications. That's probably the most basic thing that people do on their PCs. And there are a number of ways you can do this depending on what desktop environment slash window manager slash whatever you're using. You know, sometimes you hit a button, sometimes you hit a key press, whatever. Sometimes it is just attached to the Windows key or the super key or the meta key, whatever you want to call it. It really doesn't matter but the point is, is what you want to do is assign that action, the action of opening up your application launcher to a key binding if it's not already. Because like I said, this is something that everyone does very frequently. So you'll go through and in my case, it's super D, we'll bring up Rofi. Now Rofi is a very nerdy application launcher. I'll give you that same thing with the menu. It's more based for people who are using tiling window managers or even floating window managers. It's very much kind of dedicated towards those use cases but there are a ton of different launchers out there whether you use the one that's built into your desktop environment. So like the KD menu or the GNOME application library or whatever it is, or you use something like U Launcher or Rofi or D Menu, whatever. Having a key binding to bring that up so that all of your applications are just a click away is essential. And the vast majority of the desktop environments already have this functionality set up. Sometimes however they don't. Like I know Plasma is very wishy-washy in terms of when it comes to having a key binding for this because the way they use the MetaKey is a little weird. So you have to set up a key binding in order for your menu to come up with a MetaKey. It's really weird. Same thing with like things like Pop-A-West and stuff like that. They use the MetaKey for multiple different things. So sometimes it doesn't come up, sometimes it does come up. Sometimes you have to set it for something different. It depends on whether or not you're using the tiling. The thing is it can be very, very confusing. Do yourself a favor. Set yourself your own key binding for opening up your launcher. It'll save you a ton of time. So the next one on the list is setting a key binding to open up your file manager. You navigate files every single day whether you believe you do or not. It's just kind of something you get, you kind of tune out that you do but everybody does this. So opening up a file manager with a key binding makes a ton of sense. So in my case, it's super shift and enter brings up Crusader. Now everybody knows I'm having a constant level fare with Crusader. It's my favorite file manager. It's not for everybody. It's complicated as AF as they say. And it's just not for everybody. It has a ton of dependencies. So don't worry about what file manager I'm using. It's great. You should try it. But no matter what file manager you use having a key binding to bring that up makes a lot of sense because you're going to be getting into your file manager a lot and having to go through your launcher and typing in Crusader or whatever or files or Dolphin. It's a mess because first of all I can't spot worth a damage as you could see but it adds a ton of complexity in order to just launch an application that you're going to launch four or five times a day probably. So using it this way will allow you to go through and just kind of always have your file manager open at your convenience with just a key binding. Now I also have a second one just to kind of throw that out here. I have one tagged Ranger because I use Ranger all the time too. I like the minimal. It's weird because Crusader is very not minimal. Like it's like here's minimal at one end Crusader is all the way at the other end but I also like the minimal aspect of Ranger so I use that all the time too. So if you use multiple file managers as I seem to because I have a fetish for it or something I don't know having multiple key bindings for the ones that you use is can be very helpful. So the next one on the list is similar. So other than launching applications the most common thing for everybody to do no matter what's your profession why you're using your computer it doesn't matter what you're doing the most common thing everyone does is launch a browser and browse the web. That's what they do. So having a key binding to launch a browser like this in my case super W is just it just makes a ton of sense because you're launching this thing constantly. I mean I have several instances of in this case on Google Chromium open all the time and you know I have some on different workspaces obviously and they're for different things and sometimes they're for show notes sometimes they're for video ideas from sometimes they're for work whatever being able to go through and just open up a new instance of it with a key binding says a ton of time because otherwise you'd have to navigate to if I'm here opening up a new one I'd have to go through and do this Chromium whatever or if I already have a when to open I could do control N and that would open up a new one as well but the idea is that no matter where you are if you wanna open up a browser which is something you do often having a key binding to open it up just makes a ton of sense and it will save you a ton of time so that is number four on the list. Now the last one on the list is probably not something that is going to be helpful for everybody because not everybody takes screenshot I know a couple people just have never taken a screenshot in their lives I know like my mother takes them all the time she uses the window snippets tool which is a trash piece of crap thing and they were changing it and it's even getting worse but the point is a lot of people take screenshots all the time and there are a ton of different ways of doing so sometimes simply hitting the print screen button on your computer on your keyboard if you have a print screen button sometimes that works it depends on which desktop environment you're in whether or not that works whether or not they've set that up to work and even then that's gonna take a picture of your entire system like if you have multiple monitors it will take a screenshot of both of them setting up a key binding to take a screenshot of a specific area of your screen or being able to select a specific area of your screen makes a ton of sense if you're going to do this all the time so in my case control alt S will bring up flame shot now flame shot is probably my favorite screenshot utility and it's available on Linux across the board so if I wanna take a picture of anything I just highlight it and then I can save or I can go through and do a ton I can do annotations or whatever draw things on here, whatever that's great about flame shot is you can do a ton of stuff with it you don't have to use flame shot it doesn't matter what application you use almost every desktop environment comes with one pre-installed so you can just use that or you can use a flame shot or something it doesn't matter what application you use but setting up a key binding to get to this point will save you a ton of time and it also makes things consistent so if you switch distros a lot or you switch desktop environments or window managers a lot you'll notice quickly that the screenshot key bindings that are built in differ wildly like sometimes this print screen thing works sometimes it doesn't sometimes they have other key bindings having one that you can take with you that you always know that control alt S in my case is going to work it's going to take a screenshot just makes a ton of sense so it will save you time especially if you take a ton of screenshots so those are the key bindings that I recommend everyone have whether or not you use the keyboard for navigation primarily like most of the time most people use the mouse for stuff but imagine how much time you'll save launching applications if you can keep your hands on the keyboard instead of having moving them over to the mouse and then moving the cursor all the way down to wherever the menu is clicking on it then navigating that way just use your keyboard it makes a lot of sense it will save you a lot of time and I think everybody should at least give it a try so that is the video for today if you have key bindings that you think everybody should have you can leave those in the comment section below you can follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast you can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Sid A Devon Chris East Coast Web Gen 2 is fun too Patrick L Primus Marcus Maglen Jackson F Tool Steve A Mitchell Art Center Emma Teas Carbon-Dated Merrick Camp Joshua Lee J-Dog The BSCs Rock Peter A. and Crucible Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time