Keyboard shortcuts

There are several common Windows keyboard shortcuts that come in handy in Campground Master.  Learning these can make you much faster at using the software, since moving the mouse and clicking takes time (and is often frustrating when you're trying to hurry and click in the wrong place!).

Function Key shortcuts

Instead of clicking on the toolbar icons, you can use a corresponding function key.  Because F1 is the standard key for Help in Windows programs, the toolbar icons correspond to F2 through F9:

•F1 -- Help

•F2 -- New Reservation

•F3 -- New Customer (or Find Customer, depending on options settings)

•F4 -- New Transaction (or Reservation Transactions, or P.O.S. / Unbound Transactions)

•F6 -- Back up database

•F7 -- Log in/out

•F8 -- Print (this will also work on any dialog with a Print button)

•F9 -- Search

While in the Transactions entry dialog (e.g. Reservation Transactions), these function key shortcuts are available:

•F2 - Select Rates (or Auto-Calculate, if the auto-calculate button is present)

•F3 - Enter Deposit

•F4 - POS Sale (if POS option is present)

•F5 - Enter Charge

•F6 - Enter Cash Payment (Enter Payment, automatically selects Cash)

•F7 - Enter Credit Card Payment (or Other Payment if credit card processing is not enabled)

•F8 - Print

•F9 - Open cash drawer

•F10 - Done

Similar shortcuts are available in the Point of Sale Sales Entry dialog -- see that section of the documentation for details.

More Useful Shortcuts

These shortcuts to commonly used functions help minimize the need to go to the menus.

•Ctrl-U -- Find Customer

•Ctrl-F -- Find Reservation

•Ctrl-Shift-F -- Find Text.  After started, Ctrl-F3 to Find Next

•Ctrl-R -- Recall the last reservation created or viewed

•Ctrl-T -- Recall the last transactions entered or viewed

•Ctrl-S -- Search current view (same as F9 or Alt-S)

•Ctrl-L -- Look up Receipt (Find Receipt) -- only if P.O.S. option is enabled

•Ctrl-I  --  Find Inventory, only if P.O.S. option is enabled

•Alt-. (Alt-period) -- Point of Sale sales entry, only if P.O.S. option is enabled

Navigating the tab views with the Tab key and function keys

To quickly change the shown Tab View (assuming no other dialogs are open), you can either use the Tab key or Shift-Function keys.  The Tab key will switch to the next one (press Tab repeatedly to cycle through them), and Shift-Tab will switch to the previous one.  A more direct route is to use the function keys with Shift held down to switch directly to the corresponding view -- for instance, Shift-F1 for the Rack view, Shift-F2 for the Arrivals (or Map) view, and so forth.

Alt-key shortcuts to the menu and dialog buttons

Whenever you see a letter underlined in the top-level program menu (the "main menu") or on a button in a dialog, you can use the Alt-key with that letter instead of clicking on it with the mouse.  For example, hold the Alt key down while pressing the "R" key to open the Reservations menu since the "R" is underlined.  Once a menu is open (either one of the drop-down menus on the top or a right-click context menu), you can just press the associated letter without the Alt key.  So to Add a Reservation, simply press Alt-R followed by the "A" key.

Windows XP note -- There's an option in XP to hide the underlines until you press the Alt-key.  So if you don't see any letters underlined in the menu or dialogs then just press the Alt key and the underlines should show up.  You can disable this option in XP by going into Desktop Properties (right-click on an empty desktop area), click the "Appearance" tab, click the "Effects" button, and uncheck the "Hide underlined letters" option.  Then keep clicking OK to save everything.

Alternative to clicking "Save", "Done", "OK", "Close", and "Cancel" buttons

Most data entry and report dialogs have one or more of these buttons in the upper right, for closing the dialog.  You can save time by using a couple keyboard shortcuts:

Save, Done, OK -- These buttons appear when there is an option to save any changes you've made. Ctrl-Enter will do the same as clicking Save, Done or OK.

Cancel -- The ESC key almost always does the same thing as clicking the Cancel button (also same as clicking the red "X"), which will close the dialog without saving changes (if changes have been made, it will prompt for confirmation).

Close -- This button is used when separate save or cancel options don't apply, for instance if there are no data entry fields to be saved.  You can usually use either ESC or Ctrl-Enter to close the dialog.

Alternative to right-clicking on the tab views  (advanced)

While the right-click can be your friend, there may be times when you would just rather not use the mouse.  You can simulate the right mouse button with the "menu" key on the keyboard.  This key is usually just to the left of the right-hand Ctrl key, and has a small picture of a context menu and arrow cursor on it.  But first you have to get to where you want to "click", since right-clicking is all about performing a function on a particular item.  In Campground Master, use Alt-G to put the cursor, or selection focus, into the grid if it's not already there.  (This generally shows up as one of the cells being dark blue.)  Then use the 4 arrow keys on the keyboard to move the selection to the cell you want, and then press the menu key.  The context menu will open, and then you can use the keyboard to select a menu item, either with the up/down arrow keys and Enter, or by using the underlined letter shortcut (eg. "T" for Transactions on a reservation context menu).  You can also scroll the grid using the keyboard.  After pressing Alt-G, use the Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys to quickly move a page at a time up, down, back, and forward.  You can also use the arrow keys to scroll past the edge, and the grid will move so that the selection is always visible.

Searching on the tab views

You can search for a particular Site or Customer on any of the tab views by pressing F9, Ctrl-S or Alt-S.  The main uses for this are to quickly scroll to a desired site on the Rack view, or to locate a site or customer on the other views.

When you press Alt-S, a small dialog will appear -- just type any portion of a site name, or the start of a customer's last name.  Note that it will first search for a site name containing the characters you entered (it will search both the abbreviations and the "Site Name" fields).  If no match is found, it will then look for a customer.  So for instance if you're looking for a customer with "Smi" in the last name but you have a cabin named "Smiley's", it will match the cabin first.

Either way, if a match is found then the view will highlight the matched reservation (scrolling to it if necessary).  In the case of the Rack view, a match of the site name will highlight the first visible cell of the site and a match of the customer will highlight the first cell of the reservation.  (Note that it will only search reservations from today to the last date of the Rack that can be scrolled to, corresponding to the Maximum Future Days setting.)  On any of the other views, when a match is found the entire line will be highlighted.