Now the F8 key is used, what next?

[yetanotherdave]

On apple pro keyboards there are F keys up to F16, but on my macbook the keys are F1-F12, when leopard comes out F8 will be used for spaces.
F1-F7 brightness, volume, num lock and screen,
F8 spaces
F9-F11 expose
F12 dashboard.
They have run out of F keys! Where's the next feature going to go?

 

[mad jew]

The next feature will definitely be voice-activated. You heard it here first.

 

[siurpeeman]

you can always remap the features to other key commands. and apple doesn't always stick to the F-keys. spotlight, for example, is command-space. no F there.

 

[iMeowbot]

Bah, they don't care. They'll just keep assigning more things to the same keys, like they did with input method switching and Spotlight. The user can sort through the wreckage.

 

[dcv]

F9-F11 expose

I'm finding this quite annoying on my new MBP actually since the F9 & F10 keys are mapped to the keyboard backlight, so I have to press the 'Fn' key to use Expose. Grrr. I know I can map the hardware/software shortcuts the other way around but then I'd have to press Fn just to change the volume etc.

 

[yetanotherdave]

I'm finding this quite annoying on my new MBP actually since the F9 & F10 keys are mapped to the keyboard backlight, so I have to press the 'Fn' key to use Expose. Grrr. I know I can map the hardware/software shortcuts the other way around but then I'd have to press Fn just to change the volume etc.

Ouch, I don't have a MBP so I didn't realise that, I wonder if you can link the screen brightness and keyboard backlighting together to move the function off F10-11?
I thought keyboard backlighting was done by light sensor anyway?

 

[dcv]

Ouch, I don't have a MBP so I didn't realise that, I wonder if you can link the screen brightness and keyboard backlighting together to move the function off F10-11?
I thought keyboard backlighting was done by light sensor anyway?

The F9/F10 are keyboard brightness adjust down/up keys, these are in addition to the display brightness controls. The actual on/off of the keyboard backlight is indeed done by light sensor. You can set it to use the F keys for either hardware controls (i.e. brightness, volume, keyboard backlight) or for software controls (Expose etc) and then have to press the Fn key for the 'other' assigned function. I'm just not used to having to press Fn+F9 for Expose when I used to only press F9 for Expose on my PowerBook as there was nothing else assigned to the F9 key before. Wish you could somehow switch it to have a mix of software and hardware controls, if you know what I mean!

 

[Andrew275]

Yeah, they should let you set F1-F7 to be hardware, and F8-F12 to be software. That's definitely the setup I would use; I couldn't care less about manually controlling the keyboard backlight.

 

[sfisher]

They have run out of F keys! Where's the next feature going to go?

Command+F# or Alt/Option+F# or Shift+F#, etc...?