4 ms·

The F1-F12 keys have always felt like one of those things where… it’s like, people who enjoy oldschool interfaces seem very attached to. And I love the terminal

The F1-F12 keys have always felt like one of those things where… it’s like, people who enjoy oldschool interfaces seem very attached to. And I love the terminal, so I feel like I ought to have strong opinions in their favor. But the only time I need to use them is… what is it, ctrl-alt-F3 to switch to a console if my window manager has fallen apart. This is a very rare event, so I can’t find any strong feeling here. What do people use these keys for? The volume/brightness keys seem much more useful. Maybe I’ll map the corresponding F-keys to brightness as well, so I can just never care about Fn.

projektfu 5mo ago
I guess you never use Excel, or never learned to use it effectively.
- bee_rider 5mo ago
  Your guess is right. My patience for spreadsheets runs out (and I switch to Python or something) before I hit a problem complex enough that effectiveness matters.
  - projektfu 5mo ago
    No shade! But it's still amazingly effective to know to use F2, F4, F11, F12, etc. Works in LibreOffice as well. F2 to switch to cell edit mode is very useful.
cl3misch 5mo ago
Alt-F4 is the canonical shortcut for closing a window F2 is the canonical key for renaming F5 is refresh F11 is fullscreen F1 is for help but admittedly I don't use that a lot I can't think of a very frequent, standard use for the other keys. So I can't really disagree with having so many F keys being kinda unnecessary. But I'm happy to have them and they never bothered me.
- lepicz 5mo ago
  depends on artillery.. i mean canon: F5 is for save game F9 is load :)
- charlieyu1 5mo ago
  F12 is Save As. Yes I have to use MS Office at work.
webstrand 5mo ago
Games often bind skills or other game mechanics to the function keys. Anecdotally, I switched from `ctrl+shift+i` to F12 for opening the web inspector due to many websites capturing that keybinding for their own purpose (claude and code editors) if I didn't have a function row I'd have to find an even more arcane hotkey. They're just a nice set of purpose-undefined keys that you or the application can bind to useful functions.
- c-hendricks 5mo ago
  I've played a lot of games and other than quick save, can't think of any that have used the F-row.
  - webstrand 5mo ago
    MMORPGs and games that have many different mechanics might be more prone to it, versus first-person controlled games? In my experience its pretty common.
    - c-hendricks 4mo ago
      Most likely, I haven't played many MMOs. Having to go from WASD to the function row is pretty clumsy for me, especially when there's ~20 extra keys around WASD without having to move a hand.
  - kbelder 4mo ago
    Minecraft uses several. Different cameras, the console, etc.
  - lstodd 5mo ago
    Pretty much required in Eve Online.
Delk 5mo ago
Shortcuts, mostly. The shortcut for toggling fullscreen in Firefox is F11. Many default shortcuts in JetBrains IDEs also use function keys. The keymap can be changed, of course, so you can design your own keymap to avoid F keys, but that's still a bit of a chore.
maratc 5mo ago
Same on a Mac: I've never used a function key in the last … 15 years or so? Where the author uses Alt-F4, I use ⌘W. I didn't even hate the Touch Bar (but not exactly used it either.)
- oddthink 5mo ago
  VSCode binds a lot of basic commands to function keys, so I'm always doing Fn-F12. That seems like a weird choice, and if it really bothered me, I could remap it, but so far I haven't.
  - maratc 5mo ago
    VSCode is a Microsoft product (as is Excel, mentioned elsewhere) and Microsoft products work best on Microsoft platforms. Mac is not a Microsoft platform though.
roelschroeven 5mo ago
In addition to sibling replies, function keys are very useful in debuggers (to step in/over, set breakpoints, ...). And lots of other things that don't immediately come to mind. I'm old enough to remember WordPerfect on DOS, with a paper template to put over the function keys on your keyboard as a little cheat sheet for all their functions.
- bee_rider 5mo ago
  Yeah, when I’ve had to break down and reach for a debugger, it was gdb. I’m sure there are shortcuts but since it was a rare event, I just typed “step” and “continue” like a caveman, haha.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
account42 4mo ago
F2 to rename files F4 to open a console window in the current directory from Dolphin F5 to refresh, or quicksave in games F9 to quickload F11 to fullscreen browsers and some other programs

projektfu 5mo ago

I guess you never use Excel, or never learned to use it effectively.

bee_rider 5mo ago
Your guess is right. My patience for spreadsheets runs out (and I switch to Python or something) before I hit a problem complex enough that effectiveness matters.
- projektfu 5mo ago
  No shade! But it's still amazingly effective to know to use F2, F4, F11, F12, etc. Works in LibreOffice as well. F2 to switch to cell edit mode is very useful.

cl3misch 5mo ago

Alt-F4 is the canonical shortcut for closing a window F2 is the canonical key for renaming F5 is refresh F11 is fullscreen F1 is for help but admittedly I don't use that a lot I can't think of a very frequent, standard use for the other keys. So I can't really disagree with having so many F keys being kinda unnecessary. But I'm happy to have them and they never bothered me.

lepicz 5mo ago
depends on artillery.. i mean canon: F5 is for save game F9 is load :)
charlieyu1 5mo ago
F12 is Save As. Yes I have to use MS Office at work.

webstrand 5mo ago

Games often bind skills or other game mechanics to the function keys. Anecdotally, I switched from `ctrl+shift+i` to F12 for opening the web inspector due to many websites capturing that keybinding for their own purpose (claude and code editors) if I didn't have a function row I'd have to find an even more arcane hotkey. They're just a nice set of purpose-undefined keys that you or the application can bind to useful functions.

c-hendricks 5mo ago
I've played a lot of games and other than quick save, can't think of any that have used the F-row.
- webstrand 5mo ago
  MMORPGs and games that have many different mechanics might be more prone to it, versus first-person controlled games? In my experience its pretty common.
  - c-hendricks 4mo ago
    Most likely, I haven't played many MMOs. Having to go from WASD to the function row is pretty clumsy for me, especially when there's ~20 extra keys around WASD without having to move a hand.
- kbelder 4mo ago
  Minecraft uses several. Different cameras, the console, etc.
- lstodd 5mo ago
  Pretty much required in Eve Online.

Delk 5mo ago

Shortcuts, mostly. The shortcut for toggling fullscreen in Firefox is F11. Many default shortcuts in JetBrains IDEs also use function keys. The keymap can be changed, of course, so you can design your own keymap to avoid F keys, but that's still a bit of a chore.

maratc 5mo ago

Same on a Mac: I've never used a function key in the last … 15 years or so? Where the author uses Alt-F4, I use ⌘W. I didn't even hate the Touch Bar (but not exactly used it either.)

oddthink 5mo ago
VSCode binds a lot of basic commands to function keys, so I'm always doing Fn-F12. That seems like a weird choice, and if it really bothered me, I could remap it, but so far I haven't.
- maratc 5mo ago
  VSCode is a Microsoft product (as is Excel, mentioned elsewhere) and Microsoft products work best on Microsoft platforms. Mac is not a Microsoft platform though.

roelschroeven 5mo ago

In addition to sibling replies, function keys are very useful in debuggers (to step in/over, set breakpoints, ...). And lots of other things that don't immediately come to mind. I'm old enough to remember WordPerfect on DOS, with a paper template to put over the function keys on your keyboard as a little cheat sheet for all their functions.

bee_rider 5mo ago
Yeah, when I’ve had to break down and reach for a debugger, it was gdb. I’m sure there are shortcuts but since it was a rare event, I just typed “step” and “continue” like a caveman, haha.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

account42 4mo ago

F2 to rename files F4 to open a console window in the current directory from Dolphin F5 to refresh, or quicksave in games F9 to quickload F11 to fullscreen browsers and some other programs