About that DELETE key

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I have a Mac Pro desktop and a Macbook Pro laptop.

Love both of them, but have a major problem with the
DELETE key.

Explain this please....

On the Mac Pro desktop the DELETE key works by deleting text
from the first letter foward.

On a Macbook Pro the DELETE key works by deleting text from
the last letter backwards (which I hate!)

Is this common? Is there a way to fix the DELETE key so
it deletes in the manner I prefer?

Thanks!
 
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My MBP is the same.
 

cwa107


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Fn-Delete on the MBP makes the Delete key work like a traditional Delete key. I find it irritating as well. There is plenty of space on the MBP to fit all the keys minus the number pad. Yet another example of function following form (which is unfortunately the norm for Apple - even on their "pro" line).
 
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I use the alt/option key and hit delete, it deletes one word at a time.
 

cwa107


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I use the alt/option key and hit delete, it deletes one word at a time.

Thanks - that's an awesome tip. Are there any other key combinations that modify the function of the Delete key?
 
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Fn-Delete on the MBP makes the Delete key work like a traditional Delete key. I find it irritating as well. There is plenty of space on the MBP to fit all the keys minus the number pad. Yet another example of function following form (which is unfortunately the norm for Apple - even on their "pro" line).

OMG! thanks for saying that, i never knew what that fn key was on my PB! I have a french keyboard, so i thought it had to do with the french language.
 

cwa107


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OMG! thanks for saying that, i never knew what that fn key was on my PB! I have a french keyboard, so i thought it had to do with the french language.

Just so you know, the fn key modifies the function of other keys as well. If you have it set to defaults, it will only modify the function of the letters with numbers at the bottom corner. If you want to use the F1-F12 keys, you'll need to use them in tandem with the Fn key. Otherwise, they perform their alternate functions (i.e. brightness, volume adjustment, keyboard illumination etc). This becomes especially handy to know if you're running Windows.
 
OP
N
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Using the fn key in conjunction with the DELETE key
works beautifully.

Thanks for the advice!
 
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In the typewriter days, the Backspace key did exactly what it sounds like: it went back a space. In other words, what the left-arrow key does today.

When Apple built its first keyboard, it realized that this didn't accurately reflect what the key did. So they called it delete.

IBM had no such sense about four years later. They kept the same name as on they're typewriters. But they did add a "del" key, that deleted the key forward of the insertion point.

So Apple's keyboards, as they have for thirty years, have a delete key, and, on the full-size keyboards a forward delete key , marked with a symbol that looks something like [X>. Laptops duplicate this with fn+delete.
 

eric


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+rep technologist!
 
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Yes thanks technologist, you are a good man
 
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Oddly, I've gotten more rep from my post above than from any other post in my entire time here at Mac-Forums. :bemused:

And that's despite the stupid grammar mistake. I'm usually better than that.
 
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To those who are interested, there's a key mapping program out there that you can use to map the forward delete (function-delete) onto the spare (and useless) Enter key, located down next to the left-arrow.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/27484 (I believe this one will do the trick)
 
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It does seem a bit weird (having just switched), but when I'm typing, the delete key is exactly where the backspace key was, so in typing fast I naturaly hit that button and it does the same thing the backspace key did despite the different key name.
 

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