Enabling the F4 key in macOS
boinkor.net
boinkor.net
Dashboard and F4 share a physical key but they are not the same and you can hold down Fn to switch between the two, regardless of the keyboard preferences. To be clear, this advice would generally apply only when you have "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" switched OFF in the keyboard preferences.
If you're using these keys as regular function keys, they work as regular function keys and have always done so.
https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-keyboards-receive-very...
My company does a lot of international work, so I have a row of clocks at different world times set up in a neat row. I also managed to find an old installer for istatpro's widget, which is still my favorite widget of all time (lots of computer usage information at a quick glance, very slim and real time). When I still had a mac as my work computer, I used the calendar widget frequently. I also had some webpage made widgets of our Salesforce reports and tools to quickly reference without having to open a tab for salesforce or keep it open elsewhere; the periodic snapshot of the page was enough. I keep a 5 day weather forecast up as well with some basic weather information.
I use it as...a dashboard honestly. Every time I find myself frequently searching for common information, I find a widget for it and swipe over quickly. They use almost no resources, they're always fast to update when I need the information, and they're out of the way. Maybe it's just because I was really excited about Dashboard from way back when and it's part of my workflow, but I find it super useful still for managing a lot of "often needed needed but not in real-time" data points on a single laptop screen.
And for further clarification, OFF is the default.
What I don’t understand is what the author expected. If they set this setting to ON, then they won’t see the issue. If it’s OFF, then they expect a feature that isn’t an included feature anymore?
Unfortunately that's simultaneously perfectly consistent while it also violates the principle of least surprise:
- It remains technically correct - the Fn keys are in "do special thing mode", and this key has no special thing associated with it any more
- It is now a dead key, which is extremely confusing because, now that it does absolutely nothing __under the default configuration__, it's arguable as to why it's even there anymore. From the "my computer is a physical thing that humans interact with" standpoint (as distinct from the "behold my mathematically perfect 4GHz calculator" standpoint), it kinda makes a lot of sense for that key to go "oh I just send F4 because I don't do anything special" to me. In fact NOT doing that would irritate me no end!
Anecdotally, this reminds me of the recent 1+2+3 calculator incident in iOS: it's pretty obvious all the frontline developers at Apple have touch-bar MacBooks (something something "politically-correct forced dogfooding", oooooo) so this inconsistency fell through the cracks.
Apple is starting to fragment from the bottom up in a big way...
If the behaviour of the Fn key were inversed (i.e. keys with special functions perform that function unless the Fn key is held down), I would still expect regular keys to work normally no matter where on the keyboard they are. The F# keys aren't special.
And some other hyperbole. Reality check: just about no one uses the function keys, normal users can’t be bothered to remember what they do.
Which is why Apple prints the functions they want to promote on them so these at least get some use.
First, function keys are not necessarily “normal” when pressed; by default they also require “fn” to be pressed, otherwise they perform a system function (Dashboard, sound volume, etc.). And since you can turn off a lot of these features in System Preferences, I can imagine that these keys might be set to do nothing.
It is also possible for Mac applications to install system-wide hot keys, theoretically overriding even single key presses. At the very least you need to know what apps are currently running to debug this.
It is also possible to install your own keyboard overrides, through System Preferences. Need to check those.
I’m probably missing some other things. The Mac is extremely flexible when it comes to the keyboard.
True, but the fact that macbooks ship with a keyboard lacking page up, page down, home and end just frustrates me to no end. Much smaller sized laptops manage to include those keys while maintaining comfort. And you cannot make up for missing keys with key combos.
If you're saying you can't replicate those keys with key combos: Fn-Up Arrow, Fn-Down Arrow, Fn-Left Arrow and Fn-Right Arrow perform PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, respectively.
If you're saying key combos are not a suitable replacement for those keys being not present: Well, I make do, personally.
Double click word CMD-e CMD-g
If true, that's the stupidest design decision I ever heard of.
http://doomlaser.com/cursorcerer-hide-your-cursor-at-will/
Useful for when full-screen web videos flake out on this, recording the iOS simulator, and a number of other situations.
I use it to turn |\ into forwards delete (with fn \ emitting a \) and to turn caps lock into cmd-alt-shift. You can do some really crazy things with it if you’re sufficiently dedicated.
As an aside, the original Karabiner developer has a donation page here: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/pricing.html
I use it with my WASD custom and it works great.
(if anyone is wondering, the third-party app I speak of is Smooze, and it's a godsend https://smooze.co/)
finger-down-throat gesture accompanied by retching noises
At any rate, you can configure the "extra buttons" on most mice to do tasks on the Mac without special software. For example, I have a gaming mouse at home, and have one of the buttons configured to trigger Mission Control (showing miniature images of all windows open across all apps) merely through the Mouse pane of System Preferences. Also, games detect the extra buttons and can be configured to use them with no problem.
But yes, disabling mouse acceleration should be a built-in feature as well, and it is not.
Without knowing the other settings in place (ie behaviour of other fn keys) it's impossible to know if this was required or not.
Tech people are terrible for working out over engineered solutions to simple configuration issues.
I stuffed it into a desk drawer, and stole one from the desk of a departed coworker. If I spill water in that, I might ask them to order me another wired one, if Apple still bothers making them.
I know it's a small thing. But reaching over to my laptop to adjust the volume, or hunting for it with my mouse is annoying. It's one small papercut out of many.
Because you spilled water on your keyboard?