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Solution to the new aluminum keyboard? Solution found!

XnavxeMiyyep

XnavxeMiyyep

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 27, 2003
1,131
4
Washington
The new aluminum keyboards:

They look nice and they feel nice, but for whatever reason, Apple decided to make the volume controls be the same keys as the F9-F12 keys, requiring the holding of the Fn button, which is annoying to have to do on a full-sized keyboard, and then inexplicably added F17-F20 keys where the volume controls were before.

But before I discount them completely, is there any way to simply reassign the F17-F20 keys as the volume and eject keys like they are on the old Apple Pro Keyboards?
 
XnavxeMiyyep said:
The new aluminum keyboards:

They look nice and they feel nice, but for whatever reason, Apple decided to make the volume controls be the same keys as the F9-F12 keys, requiring the holding of the Fn button, which is annoying to have to do on a full-sized keyboard, and then inexplicably added F17-F20 keys where the volume controls were before.

But before I discount them completely, is there any way to simply reassign the F17-F20 keys as the volume and eject keys like they are on the old Apple Pro Keyboards?
Click to expand...

I'm going to assume you tried the System Preferences right under the custom mapping section?
 
kkat69 said:
I'm going to assume you tried the System Preferences right under the custom mapping section?
Click to expand...

I actually don't have one of these keyboards (or Leopard yet, for that matter). Still on my old Pro Keyboard that I've had for five years or so. So I was just wondering if there was a solution to this (there's no Apple store near where I live right now).
 
XnavxeMiyyep said:
I actually don't have one of these keyboards (or Leopard yet, for that matter). Still on my old Pro Keyboard that I've had for five years or so. So I was just wondering if there was a solution to this (there's no Apple store near where I live right now).
Click to expand...

I'm not at my iMac right now, so I would hope someone can confirm this, otherwise i'll have to check when I get home.

There are 2 setups for the keyboard, one is to allow the function keys to perform the assigned tasks, and another is to use them as actual function keys (this will allow the f9...etc as the expose keys) then I think you can go to custom mappings and assign the far right keys, but unsure if volume up/down/mute are on the list.

I like it the way it is myself, I rarely use them as actual function keys.
 
You could buy a Nulooq. That's how I adjust the volume and stuff.

Also, Microsoft's Reclusa features working volume controls (with a rotary encoder) under OSX. Plus a much better keyboard feel than Apple's truly hideous previous-gen keyboard, plus a nicer action than the current one. Of course, it doesn't look like an Apple keyboard...
 
Ok, thanks for the info everyone.

When I was in Providence, I played around with the keyboard, and found that there's no way to remap the volume keys to the far right like before, so I'll probably just stick with my current keyboard.
 
Can you not just go to system prefs, keyboard and mouse and select the tick box that says Use F1 F2 etc as the standard keys?
 
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