Have no mouse and a non-apple keyboard

Question

i recently got this computer as a hand me down so I could get accustomed to Mac OS. unfortunately it did not come with a keyboard or a mouse and all i have available right now is a non-apple keyboard. I'm having difficulty trying to navigate my way through anything. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Hi, s2loco -
Eww is correct.
For many things there are keyboard workarounds. For example, if you are looking at the desktop, press the up-arrow key - that should highlight the upper-leftmost icon on the desktop; you can then use the arrow keys to navigate from icon to icon on the desktop. Note though that you can only travel that way in a straight line, laterally or vertically.
You can also press the initial letter of the filename of the item - even the first two if you're fast enough - and the alphabetical-earliest item whose filename starts with that lerr(s) will be selected. You can then press Command-O as before.
You can also press 1 to select an item that starts with 1, or the earliest item alphanumerically, and then use the Tab key to move from one item to the next in alphanumerical order.
These methods will also work in a folder set to List view as well as one set to Icon view.
Once the icon of an item you want to activate (open if it is a folder, start if it is a program, open with its creator program if it is a document) is selected, pressing Command-O (that's the letter "O", lower case) will initiate that action.
However - although the Enter key can be used in most windows to activate the default button, there is no keyboard solution to using pulldown menus, or to select items in a radio-button array (like in control panels), or (in most windows) to click a button other than the default one. For those a mouse is needed.
Just as important is using a keyboard which is compatible with Apple command keys. Although there are many non-Apple keyboards which are Mac-compatible, many, if not most, PC keyboards are not - it is iffy whether the Window, Alt, or whatever-they-use keys on such will behave like the keys on Mac-compatible keyboards.
If you have a working mouse, then you can sidestep the absence of keyboard command compatibility on such keyboards - except at startup. No matter how well we maintain our Macs, at some point or another we will need to use one or more startup commands - to zap the PRAM or rebuild the desktop; or to select an alternate boot volume; or to access Extensions Manager before the OS loads; or for some other crisis-based reason. For that reason it is wise to have a Mac-compatible keyboard available.