Function keys

lemonadedlemonaded
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
for 10 years i've never, EVER used these 12 keys on top of the keyboard.. what are they used for anyway? can i customize them? if so, how? (in os x that is)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    dobbydobby Posts: 797member
    If your use any terminal emulator then they are vital (or you will have to remap keys). F1 for Hold screen, F5 Break etc.

    Apps generally use them. Most games use a couple of the F keys, especially for saving, loading games.

    I think all F keys are used in Photoshop 7, Quark etc.



    Go to System Prefs - Keyboard - Full Keyboard access and turn it on.



    Some apps let you remap keys or assign multiple keystrokes to a specific key sequence eg F2.



    Dobby.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by lemonaded

    for 10 years i've never, EVER used these 12 keys on top of the keyboard.. what are they used for anyway? can i customize them? if so, how? (in os x that is)



    For what it's worth in OS 9 you could customse them to launch differen't apps. I was a little disapointed when I found out that that feature was no longer avalible in OS X. I use F4 through F8 to control iTunes now (you have to have a third party app to do that though, but it's extremely convenient). And just FYI, Macs have 15 function keys, not 12 Proving once again, Macs are superior to their 12 function key wintell counterparts. F14 and F15 controll brightness on your display, 14 down, 15 up.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    dr vannostrandr vannostran Posts: 110member
    The Functions Keys are widely used by many applications like PhotoShop and Quark Xpress. Quark Xpress uses the Functions Keys a lot, like Hide/Show Guides F7. One of the cool things about PhotoShop is that you can apply Actions to the Function Keys. This is a huge time saver. Setting up the Actions are pretty easy and so you are able to do many repetitive tasks with one key stroke. In OS 9 you could assign the Functions Keys to open certain applications but I never used this because it took away the ability to use the Function Keys in your other programs.
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