8 ms·

Enabling the F4 key in macOS

98 points by mmastrac 9y ago

emmelaich 9y ago
While we're here does anyone know what the volume keys are for a non-apple keyboard attached to a Mac?
- danaliv 9y ago
  Depends on the keyboard I suppose; if you want to remap keys I recommend Karabiner: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ I use it with my WASD custom and it works great.
- kps 9y ago
  The standard USB volume keys should work.
dailyvijeos 9y ago
Neat. Seems like a powerful way to do most common key remapping without a kext like Karabiner Elements.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Does it work for other arbitrary keys?
  - cc33 9y ago
    I don't think so. It should only work with this specific key.
ashleyn 9y ago
It's stuff like this that routinely puts off power users from macOS.
- bastawhiz 9y ago
  In fairness, I've had to do far worse to get my middle mouse button working and my display to use the right resolution on Ubuntu in the past five years.
- oxguy3 9y ago
  Agreed -- I would dump macOS for Debian in a second if it weren't for my workplace trying to standardize everyone on one OS. The fact that I have to buy a third-party app just to disable mouse/scroll acceleration and enable my mouse's extra buttons is absolutely ludicrous. (if anyone is wondering, the third-party app I speak of is Smooze, and it's a godsend https://smooze.co/ https://smooze.co/)
  - Cyberdog 9y ago
    > Moustache: This app also includes a moustache. finger-down-throat gesture accompanied by retching noises At any rate, you can configure the "extra buttons" on most mice to do tasks on the Mac without special software. For example, I have a gaming mouse at home, and have one of the buttons configured to trigger Mission Control (showing miniature images of all windows open across all apps) merely through the Mouse pane of System Preferences. Also, games detect the extra buttons and can be configured to use them with no problem. But yes, disabling mouse acceleration should be a built-in feature as well, and it is not.
  - Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
    Generally if I buy hardware I expect the vendor to provide Mac support. Microsoft does with its keyboards, for example, so a mouse should be no different.
  - shaan7 9y ago
    Same goes for the macOS window manager, its utterly irritating for everyday tasks (think moving a window to another monitor and maximize in one go). Spectacle eased the pain a bit but I feel much more productive just back to Neon and work.
- mikestew 9y ago
pavel_lishin 9y ago
Apple feels like a hot mess right now. I spilled water into my wired keyboard, so they gave me a wireless one. The volume controls on it don't work. No magic combination of the Function key and F11 and F12 (I think? It's not in front of me) would work. The keyboard viewer showed a big blank. Plugging it in and turning off the wireless feature did nothing. I stuffed it into a desk drawer, and stole one from the desk of a departed coworker. If I spill water in that, I might ask them to order me another wired one, if Apple still bothers making them. I know it's a small thing. But reaching over to my laptop to adjust the volume, or hunting for it with my mouse is annoying. It's one small papercut out of many.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Maybe your F11/F12 keys are broken. It may not be a software issue.
- sammoorhouse 9y ago
  > Apple feels like a hot mess right now Because you spilled water on your keyboard?
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    The new wireless keyboard had the problem, not the damaged keyboard.
- jmull 9y ago
  I think the problem was with the keyboard not the OS... well, possibly the root problem is with your IT staff since they gave you a bad keyboard (unless they ordered it new, they shouldn't hand out equipment that hasn't been verified as working).
gilgoomesh 9y ago
This is not about enabling the F4 key, it is about enabling the Dashboard key which has been disabled for the last few versions of macOS. Dashboard and F4 share a physical key but they are not the same and you can hold down Fn to switch between the two, regardless of the keyboard preferences. To be clear, this advice would generally apply only when you have "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" switched OFF in the keyboard preferences. If you're using these keys as regular function keys, they work as regular function keys and have always done so.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  F4 on my computer is Launchpad, and Dashboard is invoked by pressing Fn-F12. Are you confusing the two?
  - balefrost 9y ago
    Depends how old your keyboard is: https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-keyboards-receive-very-minor-detail-changes/ https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-keyboards-receive-very...
    - FigBug 9y ago
      I completely forgot about the dashboard, I can't remember the last time I looked at it. It used to be such a big deal / selling point of OS X.
      - doomlaser 9y ago
        It's where html's <canvas> element came from
      - sircastor 9y ago
        I use it daily. It's on my 2010 era keyboard and I get annoyed when I'm using my laptop and it's not there
        9y ago
makecheck 9y ago
This is kind of short on details but a few things I’m curious about... First, function keys are not necessarily “normal” when pressed; by default they also require “fn” to be pressed, otherwise they perform a system function (Dashboard, sound volume, etc.). And since you can turn off a lot of these features in System Preferences, I can imagine that these keys might be set to do nothing. It is also possible for Mac applications to install system-wide hot keys, theoretically overriding even single key presses. At the very least you need to know what apps are currently running to debug this. It is also possible to install your own keyboard overrides, through System Preferences. Need to check those. I’m probably missing some other things. The Mac is extremely flexible when it comes to the keyboard.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  > The Mac is extremely flexible when it comes to the keyboard. True, but the fact that macbooks ship with a keyboard lacking page up, page down, home and end just frustrates me to no end. Much smaller sized laptops manage to include those keys while maintaining comfort. And you cannot make up for missing keys with key combos.
  - Cyberdog 9y ago
    > And you cannot make up for missing keys with key combos. If you're saying you can't replicate those keys with key combos: Fn-Up Arrow, Fn-Down Arrow, Fn-Left Arrow and Fn-Right Arrow perform PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, respectively. If you're saying key combos are not a suitable replacement for those keys being not present: Well, I make do, personally.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
      Yeah, I personally prefer the fn+arrow key instead of having a dedicated key for these functions.
      - pluma 9y ago
        I take it you don't use them in key combinations then. Ctrl+Home, stuff like that.
mattbroekhuis 9y ago
Get better touch tool
doomlaser 9y ago
As long as we're discussing system-wide keycode tricks, I wrote a prefpane that allows you to hide the Mac's cursor at any time with a hotkey. http://doomlaser.com/cursorcerer-hide-your-cursor-at-will/ http://doomlaser.com/cursorcerer-hide-your-cursor-at-will/ Useful for when full-screen web videos flake out on this, recording the iOS simulator, and a number of other situations.
egypturnash 9y ago
If you want to do a lot more to change keys, consider Karabiner: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ I use it to turn |\ into forwards delete (with fn \ emitting a \) and to turn caps lock into cmd-alt-shift. You can do some really crazy things with it if you’re sufficiently dedicated.
- aaxa 9y ago
  I prefer Hammerspoon to be honest. It's free, open source and you can modify pretty much everything on your Mac. Be it key bindings, hotkey sequences or automation of other software's behaviour and so on.
  - bartvk 9y ago
    I use 'em both. Hammerspoon is amazing, however Karabiner nowadays has a nice GUI for remapping your keys. This makes for an extremely low entry. As an aside, the original Karabiner developer has a donation page here: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/pricing.html https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/pricing.html
- jeffhuys 9y ago
  Be aware, though, that the newest version (Karabiner-Elements) has a bug where a key might get stuck. Which means you won't be able to login if SHIFT or a letter is stuck. I eventually removed it, because I lost work a few times because of this.
  - egypturnash 9y ago
    Works fine for me. Though I don't remap shift or any letters.
pschastain 9y ago
The keycodes listed in the article are wrong. F4 is 118; F5 is 96. Not sure why it worked for the author. For any interested, a full list of macOS keycodes can be found here: http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/key-codes-for-function-and-special-keys.html http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/key-codes-for-func...
S_A_P 9y ago
I have similar troubles with the f11 key. I only use it in windows(step into) but it has never worked on Mac. I guess the next thing to do is try this milder fix for key 96+7?

98 points by mmastrac 9y ago

emmelaich 9y ago

While we're here does anyone know what the volume keys are for a non-apple keyboard attached to a Mac?

danaliv 9y ago
Depends on the keyboard I suppose; if you want to remap keys I recommend Karabiner: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ I use it with my WASD custom and it works great.
kps 9y ago
The standard USB volume keys should work.

dailyvijeos 9y ago

Neat. Seems like a powerful way to do most common key remapping without a kext like Karabiner Elements.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
Does it work for other arbitrary keys?
- cc33 9y ago
  I don't think so. It should only work with this specific key.

ashleyn 9y ago

It's stuff like this that routinely puts off power users from macOS.

bastawhiz 9y ago
In fairness, I've had to do far worse to get my middle mouse button working and my display to use the right resolution on Ubuntu in the past five years.
oxguy3 9y ago
Agreed -- I would dump macOS for Debian in a second if it weren't for my workplace trying to standardize everyone on one OS. The fact that I have to buy a third-party app just to disable mouse/scroll acceleration and enable my mouse's extra buttons is absolutely ludicrous. (if anyone is wondering, the third-party app I speak of is Smooze, and it's a godsend https://smooze.co/ https://smooze.co/)
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  > Moustache: This app also includes a moustache. finger-down-throat gesture accompanied by retching noises At any rate, you can configure the "extra buttons" on most mice to do tasks on the Mac without special software. For example, I have a gaming mouse at home, and have one of the buttons configured to trigger Mission Control (showing miniature images of all windows open across all apps) merely through the Mouse pane of System Preferences. Also, games detect the extra buttons and can be configured to use them with no problem. But yes, disabling mouse acceleration should be a built-in feature as well, and it is not.
- Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
  Generally if I buy hardware I expect the vendor to provide Mac support. Microsoft does with its keyboards, for example, so a mouse should be no different.
- shaan7 9y ago
  Same goes for the macOS window manager, its utterly irritating for everyday tasks (think moving a window to another monitor and maximize in one go). Spectacle eased the pain a bit but I feel much more productive just back to Neon and work.
mikestew 9y ago

pavel_lishin 9y ago

Apple feels like a hot mess right now. I spilled water into my wired keyboard, so they gave me a wireless one. The volume controls on it don't work. No magic combination of the Function key and F11 and F12 (I think? It's not in front of me) would work. The keyboard viewer showed a big blank. Plugging it in and turning off the wireless feature did nothing. I stuffed it into a desk drawer, and stole one from the desk of a departed coworker. If I spill water in that, I might ask them to order me another wired one, if Apple still bothers making them. I know it's a small thing. But reaching over to my laptop to adjust the volume, or hunting for it with my mouse is annoying. It's one small papercut out of many.

saagarjha 9y ago
Maybe your F11/F12 keys are broken. It may not be a software issue.
sammoorhouse 9y ago
> Apple feels like a hot mess right now Because you spilled water on your keyboard?
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  The new wireless keyboard had the problem, not the damaged keyboard.
jmull 9y ago
I think the problem was with the keyboard not the OS... well, possibly the root problem is with your IT staff since they gave you a bad keyboard (unless they ordered it new, they shouldn't hand out equipment that hasn't been verified as working).

gilgoomesh 9y ago

This is not about enabling the F4 key, it is about enabling the Dashboard key which has been disabled for the last few versions of macOS. Dashboard and F4 share a physical key but they are not the same and you can hold down Fn to switch between the two, regardless of the keyboard preferences. To be clear, this advice would generally apply only when you have "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" switched OFF in the keyboard preferences. If you're using these keys as regular function keys, they work as regular function keys and have always done so.

saagarjha 9y ago
F4 on my computer is Launchpad, and Dashboard is invoked by pressing Fn-F12. Are you confusing the two?
- balefrost 9y ago
  Depends how old your keyboard is: https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-keyboards-receive-very-minor-detail-changes/ https://www.macstories.net/news/apple-keyboards-receive-very...
  - FigBug 9y ago
    I completely forgot about the dashboard, I can't remember the last time I looked at it. It used to be such a big deal / selling point of OS X.
    - doomlaser 9y ago
      It's where html's <canvas> element came from
    - sircastor 9y ago
      I use it daily. It's on my 2010 era keyboard and I get annoyed when I'm using my laptop and it's not there
      - 9y ago

makecheck 9y ago

This is kind of short on details but a few things I’m curious about... First, function keys are not necessarily “normal” when pressed; by default they also require “fn” to be pressed, otherwise they perform a system function (Dashboard, sound volume, etc.). And since you can turn off a lot of these features in System Preferences, I can imagine that these keys might be set to do nothing. It is also possible for Mac applications to install system-wide hot keys, theoretically overriding even single key presses. At the very least you need to know what apps are currently running to debug this. It is also possible to install your own keyboard overrides, through System Preferences. Need to check those. I’m probably missing some other things. The Mac is extremely flexible when it comes to the keyboard.

dingo_bat 9y ago
> The Mac is extremely flexible when it comes to the keyboard. True, but the fact that macbooks ship with a keyboard lacking page up, page down, home and end just frustrates me to no end. Much smaller sized laptops manage to include those keys while maintaining comfort. And you cannot make up for missing keys with key combos.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  > And you cannot make up for missing keys with key combos. If you're saying you can't replicate those keys with key combos: Fn-Up Arrow, Fn-Down Arrow, Fn-Left Arrow and Fn-Right Arrow perform PgUp, PgDn, Home, and End, respectively. If you're saying key combos are not a suitable replacement for those keys being not present: Well, I make do, personally.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    Yeah, I personally prefer the fn+arrow key instead of having a dedicated key for these functions.
    - pluma 9y ago
      I take it you don't use them in key combinations then. Ctrl+Home, stuff like that.

mattbroekhuis 9y ago

Get better touch tool

doomlaser 9y ago

As long as we're discussing system-wide keycode tricks, I wrote a prefpane that allows you to hide the Mac's cursor at any time with a hotkey. http://doomlaser.com/cursorcerer-hide-your-cursor-at-will/ http://doomlaser.com/cursorcerer-hide-your-cursor-at-will/ Useful for when full-screen web videos flake out on this, recording the iOS simulator, and a number of other situations.

egypturnash 9y ago

If you want to do a lot more to change keys, consider Karabiner: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ I use it to turn |\ into forwards delete (with fn \ emitting a \) and to turn caps lock into cmd-alt-shift. You can do some really crazy things with it if you’re sufficiently dedicated.

aaxa 9y ago
I prefer Hammerspoon to be honest. It's free, open source and you can modify pretty much everything on your Mac. Be it key bindings, hotkey sequences or automation of other software's behaviour and so on.
- bartvk 9y ago
  I use 'em both. Hammerspoon is amazing, however Karabiner nowadays has a nice GUI for remapping your keys. This makes for an extremely low entry. As an aside, the original Karabiner developer has a donation page here: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/pricing.html https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/pricing.html
jeffhuys 9y ago
Be aware, though, that the newest version (Karabiner-Elements) has a bug where a key might get stuck. Which means you won't be able to login if SHIFT or a letter is stuck. I eventually removed it, because I lost work a few times because of this.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  Works fine for me. Though I don't remap shift or any letters.

pschastain 9y ago

The keycodes listed in the article are wrong. F4 is 118; F5 is 96. Not sure why it worked for the author. For any interested, a full list of macOS keycodes can be found here: http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/key-codes-for-function-and-special-keys.html http://macbiblioblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/key-codes-for-func...

S_A_P 9y ago

I have similar troubles with the f11 key. I only use it in windows(step into) but it has never worked on Mac. I guess the next thing to do is try this milder fix for key 96+7?