I do my development on a Mac and usually have multiple things going on at one time, so there are often 3 or 5 Atom editor windows open on various desktops, and often even more Terminal windows scattered across the different desktops too. Not to mention at least one Chrome window on each desktop. I very often switch back and forth between windows using CMD-tab. However, with the tab key being so close to Q, I sometimes hit the Q instead of the tab.

😱 😱 😱 Nooooooooooo! 😱 😱 😱

Whichever app was on top is now GONE! All of the windows, too! Yikes! Of course we can get them back, but it is extremely annoying to be interrupted so rudely in the middle of working on something.

🤔 There must be a better way! 🤔

After doing some investigating, I decided to map the special key combination for inverting colors to be CMD-Q.

Here’s how: Go to Apple->System Preferences... then select Keyboard, then Shortcuts and finally, click on Accessibility in the left column. Once there, click the box next to Invert Colors as shown here.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Now, click on the characters to the right of Invert Colors and enter CMD-Q. Now when you accidentally do CMD-Q, the screen will harmlessly invert its colors, which might be a little surprising, but no harm done! Just do CMD-Q again to return the colors back to normal.

Changed Keyboard Shortcuts

I know there are other ways to change key mappings, but this seemed like the easiest to do overall. I’m using OSX El Capitan, so if you are on a different version, your windows might look a bit different.