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SPACES suck in Unibody MBP Compared to Old Whitebook; Pls Help.

HappyDude20

HappyDude20

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 13, 2008
3,688
1,479
Los Angeles, Ca
I've purchased the 13inch Macbook Pro, which I love but hate how Spaces works...at least when I compare it with the old white Macbook I used to have.

With my old white macbook to activate Spaces I had a keyboard shortcut (F10) set and I'd see all my 6 Spaces and simply click on the one I want, you know what I'm talking about.

Well, since getting the new 13inch Pro I've noticed a change in keys on the top row of the keyboard.

F1-F2: Screen Brightness
F3: Expose
F4: Dashboard
F5-F6: Keyboard Brightness
F7-F9: Play/Pause & Forward+Backward
F10-F12: Volume Controls

On my old white macbook I used to have the F9-F12 buttons to control Spaces, All Windows, Application Windows, Show Desktop, Dashboard.

Truth be told when I had the white macbook I only used these keys to access dashboard (F12 now F4) & Spaces (F11).

Now with this unibody Macbook Pro I really enjoy the 4 finger gesture down to show me "All Windows" and the 4 finger gesture up to Show desktop.

The only other 2 expose features I really like, no., need to use are Dashboard and mainly Spaces.

As of now I'm using the top corners to activate them but don't like it too much... so really I'm looking different alternatives.

Something with the multi-touch trackpad would be cool, or even utilizing the hot keys on the top row of the keyboard.

F4 is already dashboard so that's fine...but Spaces is incredibly important to me...

Of all the F# keys I could do without F3 (Expose) since I already use the 4 finger gesture to do it...so, how can I get F3 for Spaces?

I know there has to be a way. Help?
 
You can still set Spaces to F10, you'll just have to press Fn and F10 for Spaces whereas just pressing F10 will mute/unmute.

Just go into the Spaces pref pane and set the Spaces hotkey to F10, OS X will sort out the Fn bit.
 
Shaduu said:
You can still set Spaces to F10, you'll just have to press Fn and F10 for Spaces whereas just pressing F10 will mute/unmute.

Just go into the Spaces pref pane and set the Spaces hotkey to F10, OS X will sort out the Fn bit.
Click to expand...

I knew of this option but I don't like it. I don't want to use fn, at all.

Any other viable options?

What about tinkering in the keyboard shortcut settings?
 
Well you could go to system prefs for keyboard and check the "Use all F1, F2, etc as standard function keys".

Though that would mean you'd need to use fn to change brightness and stuff. Depends on whether you use brightness/volume controls more or less than expose/dashboard etc.

Personally i use corners for expose.
 
Yuh said:
Well you could go to system prefs for keyboard and check the "Use all F1, F2, etc as standard function keys".

Though that would mean you'd need to use fn to change brightness and stuff. Depends on whether you use brightness/volume controls more or less than expose/dashboard etc.

Personally i use corners for expose.
Click to expand...

Hey Yuh, (like your SN btw) :)

Um, so i just tried what you mentioned and it disabled all the normal functions of the F keys. Personally I'd love to just change only one (F3) from expose to Spaces.
 
I've binded the Spaces functionality to my extra mousebutton on my Logitech MX518.

You can bind it to whatever you'd like, just try and find something suitable and start use it.. you'll get used to it just like you got used to pressing F10.
 
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