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Help! Messed up my function key mappings

T

TemeculaMac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 8, 2007
109
0
I managed to somehow screw up my function key mappings, and can't figure out how to get things back to "default".

I use the following function keys daily:
F1/F2: brightness
F3: expose
F10: mute
F11: vol down
F12: vol up

I somehow hit a key combination that threw everything out of wack. All of my functions have now shifted all over the place (ie: expose is no longer F3, it's now F9).

I went into system preferences, and was able to re-map expose...but that's it. I can't figure out how to map the audio functions (mute and volume) and brightness control back to their original mappings.

I tried clicking on "Restore Defaults" within the Keyboard Shortcuts window...but it didn't work.

Also, I now have an ugly black box around the item I've selected on my desktop. For example, if I click on my hard drive on the desktop...it'll put a big black box around it. If I click (or move my arrow key) on the next item...the black box is then moved there...indicating it's selected. How do I get rid of this ugly box?

I have NO idea how I screwed this up, but ANY help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,
Gary
 
System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard > Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys.... is that checked?

Or System Preferences > Universal Access: did you enable?
 
ggjstudios said:
System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard > Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys.... is that checked?
Click to expand...

Dang...you're too fast :D That was it! Now...how did I get this ugly black box to show up?

Thanks for the fast reply!
 
TemeculaMac said:
I managed to somehow screw up my function key mappings, and can't figure out how to get things back to "default".

I use the following function keys daily:
F1/F2: brightness
F3: expose
F10: mute
F11: vol down
F12: vol up

I somehow hit a key combination that threw everything out of wack. All of my functions have now shifted all over the place (ie: expose is no longer F3, it's now F9).

I went into system preferences, and was able to re-map expose...but that's it. I can't figure out how to map the audio functions (mute and volume) and brightness control back to their original mappings.

I tried clicking on "Restore Defaults" within the Keyboard Shortcuts window...but it didn't work.

Also, I now have an ugly black box around the item I've selected on my desktop. For example, if I click on my hard drive on the desktop...it'll put a big black box around it. If I click (or move my arrow key) on the next item...the black box is then moved there...indicating it's selected. How do I get rid of this ugly box?

I have NO idea how I screwed this up, but ANY help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,
Gary
Click to expand...

You might have enabled the voiceover assistance, try checking if it's turned on in the Universal Access preference "Seeing" panel. Or try Command-Function-F5 to toggle it.
 
Crap...now that I turned my volume up, I have an annoying voice telling me everything I'm doing:

"Opened dialog box, clicked menu, closed window, etc...". It's almost like I enabled everything!
 
blodwyn said:
You might have enabled the voiceover assistance, try checking if it's turned on in the Universal Access preference "Seeing" panel. Or try Command-Function-F5 to toggle it.
Click to expand...

Arggg...you guys are too fast. That was my next problem :) I turned off the annoying voice AND it also got rid of the ugly black box.

Thanks for all the fast help folks!!!!! It's very much appreciated. :apple:
 
TemeculaMac said:
Crap...now that I turned my volume up, I have an annoying voice telling me everything I'm doing:

"Opened dialog box, clicked menu, closed window, etc...". It's almost like I enabled everything!
Click to expand...

System Preferences > Speech > disable these settings
System Preferences > Universal Access > disable these settings.
 
Function Keys All Messed Up!

Hi there,

I was very 'cleverly' trying out all the function keys as I had read that one of them was supposed to be a desktop shortcut i.e when its pressed you see the desktop immediately!

Somehow all the keys have now all messed up - i.e the volume keys no longer work and instead they produce the dashboard key etc - all very weird for me!

I've read a similar post by a user who had the same issue last year and have tried to use the reply that was given to him - but its not worked i.e

System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard > Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys.... (that's checked!)

I don't know what else to try - why isn't the RESTORE TO FACTORY DEFAULT working! :(

I know i managed to get the right click mouse button option working for my macbook yesterday (and the F keys seemed to have stopped working since then).

Pretty please can someone help me :confused: :confused:

Thanks

PQOTD
 
I've got this exact same problem going on and I have no idea what's wrong. I tried everything suggested thus far in this topic, but nothing has had any effect. Help would be thoroughly appreciated.

Edit: I fixed it, somehow. I unchecked the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys" option and it went back to normal.
 
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