I kind of went on a tangent, the pertinent stuff is bolded
Hi, I bought a SteelSeries APEX Keyboard which is a gaming keyboard. I really love it, there are 22 Macros, all well placed, a nice, huge spacebar button, media buttons (volume up/down/mute, Next/Last Track for music, and Play/Pause)
EDIT: if I can figure out how to map the previous/next track buttons I can modify EVERY key on the APEX with SteelSeries 3. So if you know how I can map that to something, that would be great (I just need to know where I find out the mapping key/macro/whatever because I can't map the APEX just by hitting a key, I have to know what the button presses are to map it still)
Here's my problem, I can get some of the modifier keys working on my Function buttons, but there is no 'Fn' button on a Windows Keyboard. The SteelSeries Engine 3 is actually pretty smart when it comes to switching between Mac/Windows (for example the Windows Key becomes the Command key in OS X, and you can turn off the Windows Key if you are playing games in Windows if you are using 8/8.1 so it doesn't pull up the home screen. I can map the buttons to my Function Keys (but it would be nice to have the Function key so I can have them do separate actions). The only thing I can't map is the Media Keys, but as the APEX comes with those, no big deal (although I don't know why, the Back/Next Track don't work. Any help there?)
I have F1/2 Brightness Down/Up. I also have screenshots mapped to F5,6 (Selected Area, Full Screenshot respectively), F9/F10/F11/F12 is Application Window/Show Desktop/Launchpad/Mission Control.
Is there a way to create a new Desktop without opening mission control? Just curious. I know once you have it open you can move between them via ^1,^2,^3, etc. But it would be nice to just instantly create one with the window you have open. I usually only do this with Virtual Machines or if I have a bunch of stuff open, especially things like Photoshop where I want it to take the full screen up.
Kind of off subject, not necessary to read:
Also on a somewhat unrelated but kind of related...I have been having a hell of a time bootcamping. I use Windows of course for Gaming. While Mac OS X is definitely moving forward in that department (with more games being made with Mac in mind from the start or ported over), but still, out of the 100 or so Steam Games I have, only 10 or so are Mac OS X Compatible. I have Bootcamped Windows 8/8.1 at least 3 or 4 times, but those times I had to remove it because at first it was crashing, then I needed to reformat my HDD for OS X, and then I ran out of space of my Windows partition, and now I can't seem to get it.
In the past I've always had trouble using Boot Camp Assistant, but I tried that, multiple times. I've also made my own partition using NTFS (with Tuxera and another program that formats NTFS on Mac, so the options I have to format NTFS are "Windows NT File System (Tuxera)", "Windows NT File System", "Windows NT File System (Compressed)". In the past I've used Boot Camp Assistant to create the USB stick for installing the drivers, but I would have to format the partition myself and I am positive I always chose the middle one "Win NTFS" (no compression, or the Tuxera, but I have chose Tuxera once or twice to try it). I have a Late 2013 27" iMac (I heard the Haswell processors have something to do with it, like they are finicky or something). I just REALLY want to be able to play my games I own. I have a Windows laptop, but it doesn't have a 1/4 of the power of my iMac (I only have the 1GB of GDDR5 NVidia GeForce 770M Graphics, not the 2GB, but I also have 32GB of RAM, which helped a ton after I upgraded. Sure, not all of it gets used, but when I had 16, it seems like it was always running too low on memory, especially while gaming. I plan to build a gaming rig by the summer, but until then it would be nice to Bootcamp again.
Speaking of Windows, has anyone tried Win 10 Technical Preview, especially if you have an Xbox One (although right now you can't do much with the Xbox app that you can't do with Smartglass, but it's way better designed and allows you to connect to your whole account, so Windows Games/360/Xbox One, and go to the store, message friends, even voice chat with someone on Xbox while you are on PC). While I still love OS X more for day to day use, W10 is really making me rethink my phone purchase this year. Before trying W10 I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but that's off subject. If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do. It will be free for those with 7/8/8.1 for a year and the Tech Preview is free anyways. It's basically a very cleaned up version of Windows with a lot of beefy stuff that I can't wait to try out when the full release is out (like the Spartan Browser, Cortana is great but it still has a few bugs, Xbox App for Streaming and multiplayer; you can have a 2nd player on the PC for games that don't have split screen, just a whole slew of nice features that should've been there years and years ago. I think the CEO change might have been the catalyst for change. Plus I can't wait to try out those Hololens
which also have W10 built in.
Hi, I bought a SteelSeries APEX Keyboard which is a gaming keyboard. I really love it, there are 22 Macros, all well placed, a nice, huge spacebar button, media buttons (volume up/down/mute, Next/Last Track for music, and Play/Pause)
EDIT: if I can figure out how to map the previous/next track buttons I can modify EVERY key on the APEX with SteelSeries 3. So if you know how I can map that to something, that would be great (I just need to know where I find out the mapping key/macro/whatever because I can't map the APEX just by hitting a key, I have to know what the button presses are to map it still)
Here's my problem, I can get some of the modifier keys working on my Function buttons, but there is no 'Fn' button on a Windows Keyboard. The SteelSeries Engine 3 is actually pretty smart when it comes to switching between Mac/Windows (for example the Windows Key becomes the Command key in OS X, and you can turn off the Windows Key if you are playing games in Windows if you are using 8/8.1 so it doesn't pull up the home screen. I can map the buttons to my Function Keys (but it would be nice to have the Function key so I can have them do separate actions). The only thing I can't map is the Media Keys, but as the APEX comes with those, no big deal (although I don't know why, the Back/Next Track don't work. Any help there?)
I have F1/2 Brightness Down/Up. I also have screenshots mapped to F5,6 (Selected Area, Full Screenshot respectively), F9/F10/F11/F12 is Application Window/Show Desktop/Launchpad/Mission Control.
Is there a way to create a new Desktop without opening mission control? Just curious. I know once you have it open you can move between them via ^1,^2,^3, etc. But it would be nice to just instantly create one with the window you have open. I usually only do this with Virtual Machines or if I have a bunch of stuff open, especially things like Photoshop where I want it to take the full screen up.
Kind of off subject, not necessary to read:
Also on a somewhat unrelated but kind of related...I have been having a hell of a time bootcamping. I use Windows of course for Gaming. While Mac OS X is definitely moving forward in that department (with more games being made with Mac in mind from the start or ported over), but still, out of the 100 or so Steam Games I have, only 10 or so are Mac OS X Compatible. I have Bootcamped Windows 8/8.1 at least 3 or 4 times, but those times I had to remove it because at first it was crashing, then I needed to reformat my HDD for OS X, and then I ran out of space of my Windows partition, and now I can't seem to get it.
In the past I've always had trouble using Boot Camp Assistant, but I tried that, multiple times. I've also made my own partition using NTFS (with Tuxera and another program that formats NTFS on Mac, so the options I have to format NTFS are "Windows NT File System (Tuxera)", "Windows NT File System", "Windows NT File System (Compressed)". In the past I've used Boot Camp Assistant to create the USB stick for installing the drivers, but I would have to format the partition myself and I am positive I always chose the middle one "Win NTFS" (no compression, or the Tuxera, but I have chose Tuxera once or twice to try it). I have a Late 2013 27" iMac (I heard the Haswell processors have something to do with it, like they are finicky or something). I just REALLY want to be able to play my games I own. I have a Windows laptop, but it doesn't have a 1/4 of the power of my iMac (I only have the 1GB of GDDR5 NVidia GeForce 770M Graphics, not the 2GB, but I also have 32GB of RAM, which helped a ton after I upgraded. Sure, not all of it gets used, but when I had 16, it seems like it was always running too low on memory, especially while gaming. I plan to build a gaming rig by the summer, but until then it would be nice to Bootcamp again.
Speaking of Windows, has anyone tried Win 10 Technical Preview, especially if you have an Xbox One (although right now you can't do much with the Xbox app that you can't do with Smartglass, but it's way better designed and allows you to connect to your whole account, so Windows Games/360/Xbox One, and go to the store, message friends, even voice chat with someone on Xbox while you are on PC). While I still love OS X more for day to day use, W10 is really making me rethink my phone purchase this year. Before trying W10 I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but that's off subject. If you haven't tried it, I suggest you do. It will be free for those with 7/8/8.1 for a year and the Tech Preview is free anyways. It's basically a very cleaned up version of Windows with a lot of beefy stuff that I can't wait to try out when the full release is out (like the Spartan Browser, Cortana is great but it still has a few bugs, Xbox App for Streaming and multiplayer; you can have a 2nd player on the PC for games that don't have split screen, just a whole slew of nice features that should've been there years and years ago. I think the CEO change might have been the catalyst for change. Plus I can't wait to try out those Hololens
which also have W10 built in.