Wired keyboard: Home/End keys?

I have the full wired keyboard which I though would have keys on it that had the words "home" and "end" on them, but it doesn't. The "up left" and "down right" keys seem to offer similar functionality, but how do I get them to act as home and end keys do on a PC?

Currently the effect they have is the same as pressing CTRL + Home and CTRL + End on a PC (start of document and end of document). I chose the wired keyboard as the wireless one lacks the forward delete, home and end keys; all of which I use regularly while programming.

Which full wired keyboard do you have? I have an Apple full wired aluminum keyboard ($49.99) and it has "home" and "end" right below the F14 key. (You might have the stunted wired keyboard that comes with the new iMac machines. No numeric keypad.)

While in Snow Leopard OS X:

Pressing "Command End" takes me to the end of a document. Pressing "Command Home" brings me to the beginning. "Command Right Arrow" takes you to the end of a line while "Command Left Arrow" brings you to the beginning of a line.

When in Windows 7 (same keyboard)

"Control Home" and "Control End" act the same way as they would on a Windows keyboard. "End" takes you to the end of a line while "home" brings you to the beginning. (same as a Windows keyboard).

Regards.

jackcharles said:

I have the full wired keyboard which I though would have keys on it that had the words "home" and "end" on them, but it doesn't. The "up left" and "down right" keys seem to offer similar functionality, but how do I get them to act as home and end keys do on a PC?

Click to expand...

Are you sure you got the full keyboard that has a number pad? Apple has two wired keyboards. One is the compact and the other is the full sized version.

chscag said:

Which full wired keyboard do you have? I have an Apple full wired aluminum keyboard ($49.99) and it has "home" and "end" right below the F14 key. (You might have the stunted wired keyboard that comes with the new iMac machines. No numeric keypad.)

While in Snow Leopard OS X:

Pressing "Command End" takes me to the end of a document. Pressing "Command Home" brings me to the beginning. "Command Right Arrow" takes you to the end of a line while "Command Left Arrow" brings you to the beginning of a line.

When in Windows 7 (same keyboard)

"Control Home" and "Control End" act the same way as they would on a Windows keyboard. "End" takes you to the end of a line while "home" brings you to the beginning. (same as a Windows keyboard).

Regards.

Click to expand...

This is the keyboard that I have, which I bought separately:
Apple Keyboard with numeric keypad - British - Apple Store (U.K.)

Under the F14 key it has two keys, where Home and End should be. But the "home" key has an arrow which points up and left, and the "end" key has arrow which points down and right.

I think I will just get used to using Command + Arrow Keys, as they seem to be providing the functionality that I want..

Apparently the British version is different than the version here in the States. The Command shortcuts are the way to go then unless you want to import the US version.

OK, you purchased the British full sized Apple keyboard. I have the US version. Why in the world would they leave off the Home and End key on the British version? Doesn't make sense does it?

However, the Arrow (Up and Down) should function the same way. Try it with a TextEdit or MS Office document to see if it works as I described.

Regards.

chscag said:

OK, you purchased the British full sized Apple keyboard. I have the US version. Why in the world would they leave off the Home and End key on the British version? Doesn't make sense does it?

However, the Arrow (Up and Down) should function the same way. Try it with a TextEdit or MS Office document to see if it works as I described.

Regards.

Click to expand...

In MS Word they work like I expect, but when I try them in Eclipse IDE (text editor) home goes to the start of the document and end goes to the end of the document, instead of the start/end of the line.

You've got to remember that Apple has a vested interest in being different from Microsoft - even if it means that their keyboards are not as useful. I ditched the iMac keyboard in half an hour and plugged in my old Msoft ergonomic keyboard - it works fine and it won't give me repetitive strain syndrome - unlike the dreadfully unergonomic Apple product. It's sad that Apple won't listen to its users on this.

I use the command+option to jump to the next word... useful for editing...

DefaultKeyBinding file may help...

jackcharles said:

I have the full wired keyboard which I though would have keys on it that had the words "home" and "end" on them, but it doesn't. The "up left" and "down right" keys seem to offer similar functionality, but how do I get them to act as home and end keys do on a PC?

Currently the effect they have is the same as pressing CTRL + Home and CTRL + End on a PC (start of document and end of document). I chose the wired keyboard as the wireless one lacks the forward delete, home and end keys; all of which I use regularly while programming.

Click to expand...

@jackcharles - you might want to try to create a defaultkeybindings file to remap the home and end keys. That is what I did and it has worked well in some applications. It doesn't work for all applications because some applications chose to write their own custom editor which either ignores or bypasses the Cocoa framework or it does something funny with it so that it has its own internal key mappings.

Examples I know of include: web forms like this one rendered in Chrome and Mozilla Thunderbird 2. There are a few more but I don't edit in them too often to recall what they are. What counts is that it works well with TextEdit.

Information on how you can do this (as well as someone who has actually done it) is located here.

I further customised mine so that Ctrl-home and Ctrl-End goes to the beginning and end of the document.