The Option Key currently comes in two forms: Orange or Silver, depending on if you are on the original Pre or any other webOS device. Regardless of the color, that single keyboard key is quite versatile, allowing you to do quite a number of different thing throughout the operating system. In this week’s Tip Roundup, we explore some of the many uses you will find for this Option Key. Keep reading after the break to reexamine all those uses
In this edition of PreCentral’s Tip Roundup, we focus on some keyboard shortcuts or keyboard combinations that are available as a result of the presence of a physical keyboard on all current webOS devices. For a complete list of published Keyboard Shortcut tips, click here. For a summary of the top tips, keep reading:
Got any other great keyboard shortcuts or combinations not already covered by a PreCentral Tip?
For those who remember the stock calculator app in PalmOS, the one included in webOS appears to be severely lacking. At first look, you only have the basic arithmetic commands of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (along with a standard memory function of M+, MR, and MC). While still not nearly as full featured as the old PalmOS calculator, there are some additional functions available simply by pressing the spacebar. The 4 buttons on the right will turn into M-, %, square root, and +/-.
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If you still need more functionality in your calculator, you may need to look in the App catalog for a suitable replacement. Got any suggestions?
Thanks to thomas92 for suggesting this tip
In this edition of our Tip Roundup, we thought it would be a good idea to present the top tips as rated by you, the users. In case you haven’t noticed, every tip includes a rating area on the bottom that allows you to give anywhere from 1 to 5 stars for that tip. So, please be sure to always rate the usefulness of the tips you read, so we can find the best ones to share in the future. Continue reading after the break to find out which tips took the top honors
Typing with the physical keyboard on your webOS phone allows you quick access to any of the letters, numbers or symbols located on the keys just by using of the Option (Orange/Silver) and Shift (
)keys. However, if you want to access a larger range of other symbols–including accented letters and smiley faces–you will need to use the 
key on the bottom right of the keyboard. Keep reading after the break for details on how to use the 
key.
Did you know that you can press the Option (Orange/Silver) key and then click on links or pictures in the browser to bring up a pop-up menu with some options on how to interact with those areas? The options are different 
depending on which one you click on Option + tapping a link will bring up the following options:
Option + tapping a picture will bring up the following options:
As we continue our review of the Facebook Beta App, we are going to quickly walk-thru each of the 7 main sections of the app and give a brief overview of what is included there (if you still do not have the Beta app, review our initial Facebook tip on how to install it). But before we get into the overview, let’s quickly talk about the three ways to navigate this app. In addition to the top bar header, you can swipe down from the top-left of the screen to bring up the Facebook application drop-down menu and then tapping "Navigate To…" to bring up the list of sections. You will also notice that each section here includes a Meta-tap to use a Gesture Area + keyboard shortcut to move between the app. So now that you know how to move around the app, let’s discuss each section (after the break!)
Two things that differentiate the hardware of webOS devices and that of all other mobile phones are the presence of both a physical keyboard and the Gesture Area. While the Gesture Area can be used to perform a Back Swipe, a Forward Swipe, or a variety of other gestures, it can also be used for keyboard shortcuts (called a Meta-tap). All you need to do is hold down one finger anywhere on the Gesture Area and then press the corresponding keyboard key for any given shortcut. And how do you know what the shortcuts are? Well, all you need to do is go into any Applica
tion Menu by performing a downward-swipe from the top left corner of the screen and look for the Bulls-eye + Letter combinations.
The most common use of the Meta Tap is for Copy/Paste. All you need to do is highlight the text that you want (or use a Gesture + A to "Select All"), perform a Gesture + C to copy (a "Selection Copied" dashboard notification will appear), put your cursor where you want to paste, and then perform a Gesture + V to paste. And this is not constrained to just the app you are working in…this even works across apps!
Deleting a large amount of text (or even just a single word) can take its toll on the backspace key and can also take a bit of time. You can highlight the block of text to do a bulk delete, but that is also not always the quickest way either. Instead, try holding down the Shift key () and then pressing Backspace (
). Each time you press Backspace, you will delete an entire word instead of just a single character
Thanks to Sean Galloway for suggesting this tip
Attaching your phone to a computer and turning it into a USB drive can be a powerful tool to manage the files on your device. There are actually three ways to access USB Drive mode:
When you initially plug in your device, you get a dashboard option for "USB Drive" or "Just Charge". Just press the "USB Drive" option.
to "Just Charge" when you first plugged it in, you will get a dashboard option that you can access at any time. Just tap on that notification to access the USB Drive.
If your touchscreen is not working, if you swiped away the dashboard notification, or you just like keyboard shortcuts, you can also press Option (orange or silver key) + Sym + U after you attach your phone the computer.