The arrow keys in the lower-right corner of the keyboard move the insertion point up, down, left or right—except that it's not called an insertion point in keyboard-based applications; it's called a cursor. Like the blinking bar in mouse-based applications, the cursor marks the spot where your next action will take place. Sometimes the cursor is a blinking box; sometimes it's a blinking underline.

Early models of the Apple II didn't have Up and Down Arrow keys, so programmers who needed to make the cursor move up and down took matters into their own hands and designated certain keys on the keyboard to accomplish that function. Usually they designated a set of four adjacent keys (that formed a cross) to be up, down, left and right cursor-moving keys. (See Figure 3-14.) You won't have any trouble using such an application on your Apple IIGS as long as you remember to use the substitute keys instead of the arrow keys.

Figure 3-14
Arrow substitutes

Whereas you control mouse-based applications by choosing commands from pull-down menus, you control keyboard-based applications by using Control or Open-Apple in combination with another key. For example, you might hold down Open-Apple while you press P to print something. Open-Apple and D to delete something, Open-Apple and S to save something, Open-Apple and C to cut something, and so on.

Because key combinations vary from application to application, the only way to find out how a given application uses Control and Open Apple is to read the manual that came with the application. To make it easier to remember key combinations, the key you press in combination with Open-Apple or Control is usually the first letter of the function it performs.

Open-Apple is called the Command key and is sometimes represented with a propeller icon.

Using keyboard-based programs

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