Keyboard shortcuts in Burn by Zaweba

There are only a handful, and they are easy to remember: Burn by Zaweba keeps its shortcuts few and easy to remember. Ctrl+N starts a new data disc, Ctrl+B opens the Backup Assistant, Ctrl+, opens Settings, F5 looks for drives again, F1 opens Getting started, and Alt+Home or Esc takes you back to Home. Alt with F, D, I, T, V, Z or H opens the File, Disc, Images, Tools, View, Zaweba or Help menu.

Help > Keyboard shortcuts lists them all inside the app, so you never need to memorise them up front.

Shortcuts matter most for the jobs you repeat. If you back up every month, or make discs often for work, a few keys saves hunting through the home screen each time, and once they are in your fingers you will hardly think about them.

The everyday ones

Ctrl+B is the one to learn first if you use Burn for backups. It opens the Backup Assistant, where you choose folders, file kinds and disc size, and Burn plans, burns and checks the discs. Ctrl+N does the same for a plain data disc, opening the page where you drag files in and watch the capacity bar.

Ctrl+, opens Settings, with the theme, the check after burning, the finish sound, Advanced mode and the Explorer right-click commands. The comma shortcut is shared with many other programs, so it may already feel familiar.

Drives, help and getting home

F5 is the shortcut for View > Look for drives again. Press it after plugging in a USB disc drive or putting in a disc that Burn hasn't noticed yet, and Burn scans again. The status bar then shows the writer and the disc in it, with an Eject button.

F1 opens Help > Getting started, which explains backing up, checking backups, restoring, burning any files, music, and where the image and disc tools are. It's a good place for anyone new to the app.

Alt+Home or Esc returns to the home screen from wherever you are, with its tiles for backups, data discs, audio CDs, MP3 discs, saving CDs as files and the image tools, and your saved backup sets as one-click chips.

Saved backup sets sit on the home screen as chips, so the quickest way to repeat a backup is often Alt+Home followed by a click on the chip. From there Burn uses the same folders, file kinds and disc size as before, and you can choose to back up only the files that changed since last time.

Working the menus from the keyboard

Every menu can be opened with Alt and a letter. Alt+F opens File, Alt+D opens Disc, Alt+I opens Images, Alt+T opens Tools, Alt+V opens View, Alt+Z opens the Zaweba menu and Alt+H opens Help. Inside a menu, the arrow keys move between items, Enter chooses one and Esc closes the menu.

That means everything in Burn can be reached without the mouse. Restore from backup discs and Backup log are under Tools. Burn image and Convert image are under Images. Erase a rewritable disc and Add files to a disc are under Disc.

The Zaweba menu lists the other Zaweba apps you have installed so you can open them, and has links to zaweba.com and to send feedback. Burn by Zaweba is free, offline and needs no account, and with a handful of keys it's quick to drive.