Is there any way to reassign keyboard keys?

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HeXp£Øi±

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I'm using an emac(my first mac) with a pc keyboard and so there's no eject key for the cd-rom. Is there any way i can reassign a key or make a hot-key for the eject butten? While i'm on the subject...i'm a mac newbi. Windows has it's own important keys, start, esc, (ctrl+alt+del) :spook: ...are there any other important keys or key combos i should know about for my mac?
 
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command(apple)+option+esc is the equivelnt to crtl+alt+del althought it is a little different on the mac, a little more responsive, and a little better.
 
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i find i use these two alot..
command(apple) +tab to scroll through open programs
command(apple) +q to quit programs (similar to alt f4 in windows)
 
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HeXp£Øi±

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uhhh...so if i'm using a pc keyboard is there any way i can assign keys like the so-called apple key?
 
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Yeah, if you're using Tiger, there should be a system preference option where you can assign different commands to a regular windows keyboard.
 
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HeXp£Øi± said:
uhhh...so if i'm using a pc keyboard is there any way i can assign keys like the so-called apple key?
HeXp£Øi± said:
I'm using osx. What about a free third party app?

The Windows key on a PC keyboard acts the same as the Command(Apple) key on a Mac keyboard.
Tiger is OS X, just the latest version. There is no need for a third party app, the System Preferences option to change keyboard settings is in all versions of OS X.

Here is an excerpt from the Mac Help feature about setting up keyboard shortcuts and assigned keys.


Setting custom keyboard shortcuts for applications

Keyboard shortcuts allow you to quickly perform tasks by pressing keys on the keyboard. You can assign your own keyboard shortcuts to perform menu commands in any Mac OS X application or in the Finder. This may be useful if, for example, one of the "global" shortcuts, which works the same in most applications, is used by one application for a different purpose. In this case, you can assign it a different key combination.


Note: You can only create keyboard shortcuts for existing menu commands. You cannot define keyboard shortcuts for general purpose tasks such as opening an application or switching between applications.

Quit the application for which you want to add or change a keyboard shortcut. The shortcut will not be added if the application is running when you create the new shortcut.
Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click Keyboard & Mouse. Then click Keyboard Shortcuts.
Click the Add (+) button.
Choose an application from the Application pop-up menu. If you want to set the same key combination for a menu command that appears in many applications, choose All Applications. If you want to set a shortcut for the Finder, choose Finder at the top of the list. If the application you want to select does not appear in the list, choose Other and locate the application using the Open dialog. Some applications may not allow you to set keyboard shortcuts.
Type the menu command for which you want to set a keyboard shortcut in the Menu Title field.

Tip: You must type the command exactly as it appears in the application menu, including ellipses and any other punctuation. (An ellipsis is a special character that looks like three periods. To type an ellipsis, you can press Option-; or use the Character Palette. It may be difficult to tell whether the command is written in the menu with a real ellipsis or with three periods, so if one does not work, try the other.)

Click in the Keyboard Shortcut field and press the key combination that you want to assign to the menu command, and then click Add.

Tip: You cannot use each type of key (for example, a letter key) more than once in a key combination.

To remove a customized shortcut, click the Delete (-) button.
 
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Littleweseth

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if you aren't using Tiger, though, try uControl (www.gnufoo.org).

just for your information, OSX is the operating system name : Tiger, Panther, etc are the version names. Panther is 10.3.x : Tiger is 10.4.x.
 
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HeXp£Øi±

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Thanks D3v1L80Y for that useful information. I'm starting to get it figured out now and i've dicovered that the eject key is actually f12 which i had previously tried and it hadn't worked, but it works now.

Also thanks Littleweseth for the link and that tip on the version names that's going to save me some trouble. :miner:
So just how different are these versions? Normally it doesn't seem like there would be a whole lot of difference between a version 10 and version 10.4 but i notice that people are paying $10 on ebay for mac os x and $100 for tiger 10.4. How old is os x anyway and if my boot screen just says mac os x does that mean it's 10.0? A better question would be how do i check the version number?
 
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Fallooza

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HeXp£Øi± said:
I'm using an emac(my first mac) with a pc keyboard and so there's no eject key for the cd-rom. Is there any way i can reassign a key or make a hot-key for the eject butten? While i'm on the subject...i'm a mac newbi. Windows has it's own important keys, start, esc, (ctrl+alt+del) :spook: ...are there any other important keys or key combos i should know about for my mac?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459 its a list of short cuts hope it helps ya
 
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HeXp£Øi±

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Note: uControl version 1.4.6 is NOT compatible with any version prior to Mac OS 10.3.8

I'll definetely need to know my version number.


Oh thanks for the link Fallooza. I wonder, is there a way to access the bios on an emac?
 
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Click on the apple in the top left corner, then "about this mac" the OS X version number is shown there.
 
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HeXp£Øi± said:
Thanks D3v1L80Y for that useful information. I'm starting to get it figured out now and i've dicovered that the eject key is actually f12 which i had previously tried and it hadn't worked, but it works now.

Also thanks Littleweseth for the link and that tip on the version names that's going to save me some trouble. :miner:
So just how different are these versions? Normally it doesn't seem like there would be a whole lot of difference between a version 10 and version 10.4 but i notice that people are paying $10 on ebay for mac os x and $100 for tiger 10.4. How old is os x anyway and if my boot screen just says mac os x does that mean it's 10.0? A better question would be how do i check the version number?
Think of OS X 10.0 as Windows 95 and OS X 10.4 as Windows 2008...

The first digit after the 10 is the important one... ;)
 

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