In a "Save as ... " dialog, what's the quickest way to keyboard-navigate to "Recently Used" in the "Places" side-pane of Nautilus?
Solution 1:
In my English Ubuntu 12.10, when I hold Alt, the "P" in "Places" becomes underlined. This gives the hint that Alt+P will move focus to the "Places" bar.
The accelerator might be different in another release or a localized version of Ubuntu. Also note that some characters in other labels become underlined, too -- the logic is the same here.
This works in many other dialogs in Ubuntu and Windows.
EDIT: Beyond that logic, hitting Alt+R selects "Recently used" in the "Places" bar and leaves the focus in the "Files" pane.
EDIT 2: Alt+D selects "Desktop".