Keyboard Shortcuts, 2 Questions

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Is there a way to program the F keys to be useful? Like program the F14 key to behave as apple/shift/4, for instance.*

And is there an easy way to create special characters, like the US-International** keyboard layout on my WXP PC?

I can't even spell my own name right at the moment :) I found the File/Special Characters menu, but that's quite cumbersome. I'm sure there's a slicker way to do this.

* after I just pressed apple/F5, I'm not going to press buttons at random to figure out what they do. Almost fell out of my chair.
** right-Alt + s = ß, " followed by a = ä etc.
 
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Kar98 said:
* after I just pressed apple/F5, I'm not going to press buttons at random to figure out what they do. Almost fell out of my chair.

What did it do? Please don't let my curiousity get me doing it!!
 
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fKeys can remap certain keyboard keys, it might work for you. I can't answer your second question though.
 
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quicksilver said:
What did it do? Please don't let my curiousity get me doing it!!

Nothing catastrophical, but it started to read the screen out loud. Kinda startling if you're hoping for a page refresh (apple r = F5 on Windows) and suddenly the computer is babbling away merrily.
 
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surfwax95 said:
fKeys can remap certain keyboard keys, it might work for you. I can't answer your second question though.

Hmmm, there's "US Extended" under System Preferences/International/Input Menu...I wonder what that does... :dive:
 
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Kar98 said:
Nothing catastrophical, but it started to read the screen out loud. Kinda startling if you're hoping for a page refresh (apple r = F5 on Windows) and suddenly the computer is babbling away merrily.

Hahaha, that is so cool! Had to try it. What a great little trick.....

(simple things......)
 
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Kar98
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Here's another question on the topic: What's the OSX equivalent of CTRL+Tab on Windows PCs (cycling through various documents or tabs of one application)?

Seriously, I'd rather not try out all the various combinations myself. What if apple+L doesn't produce a ? but deLetes the current application? ;)
 
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Kar98 said:
Here's another question on the topic: What's the OSX equivalent of CTRL+Tab on Windows PCs (cycling through various documents or tabs of one application)?

Seriously, I'd rather not try out all the various combinations myself. What if apple+L doesn't produce a ? but deLetes the current application? ;)

there is a thread in here called Keyboard shortcuts. it is stickied to the top.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=25

as for cycling through the windows, apple + tab will cycle throught the open programs. apple + `(not the single quote but the same key as the tilde) will cycle through program windows. i hope that makes sense
 
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Holding down the alt key while you type will allow you to type a certain selection of special charcters, alt+shift gives you even more.

Check out this , particularly the second part where it talks about the keyboard viewer.
 
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http://homepage.mac.com/frakes/MOSXPT/content/keyboard.html

I map my F keys to actions using Quicksilver. F1 triggers windowShade, F2 minimizes the current window, F3 sends the currently selected files to my "uploads" directory on my fileserver, F4 sends my web directory up to my production site, F6 moves the currently selected files to ~/Documents, F7-10 Tag files with my commonly used tags and sends up an onscreen reminder of what I tagged them as (since I change these semi-regularly), and finally F11 triggers all maintenance CRON jobs.

(Yes I use a lot of triggers, 60 something last time I counted them.)

EDIT: If you want to type s[ecial characters try the keyboard viewer. Unfortunately the only way I know how to get to it is QuickSilver (I know it is an addiction). Here is what it looks like. First shot is normal, second <alt> pressed.

... OK the screen shots did not work for crap. Create an applescript below and run it. This is the AS that QS uses to present it.

Code:
property theApplication : "KeyboardViewerServer"
property thePath : "/System/Library/Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer.app"

set HFSPath to ((POSIX file thePath) as string)
tell application "System Events" to ¬
	set isRunning to 0 < (count (application processes whose name is theApplication))
if isRunning then ¬
	tell application HFSPath to quit
delay 0.15

ignoring application responses
	tell application HFSPath to run
end ignoring

EDIT2: heh, that is what I get by not reading all responses. The AS above will give you the keyboard viewer mentioned in the post above me. :)
 
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Kar98
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fearlessfreap24 said:
there is a thread in here called Keyboard shortcuts. it is stickied to the top.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Why yes, there is. Thank you :)

as for cycling through the windows, apple + tab will cycle throught the open programs. apple + `(not the single quote but the same key as the tilde) will cycle through program windows. i hope that makes sense

Yes, it does. The apple+tab is the same hand movement as alt+tab in Windows, that's how I discovered it. control+tab didn't do anything.

So far my only switching complaints are the lack of an intuitive and simple way of entering special characters and that The Missing Sync isn't included for free (the latter also doesn't sync e-mail and notes from Entourage to the PPC). Oh, and the fact that Entourage can't import .pst files from Outlook. That's just dumb, seeing how they are essentially the same program, both from Microsoft. Thank you, Microsoft.
 
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Kar98
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Oh, I see: to cycle through different tabs in Safari, press command shift [ or ]. Well, that's intuitive...
 

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