Mac Kindergarten

Our reader Agnes uses an application, which makes use of the F8-F12 keys. By default, these keys are assigned to bring up Spaces, control Exposé and the Dashboard.

However, there is a way, to use these keys as “normal” F-keys in an application. Let’s see how.

1) Via the Dock or the Apple icon go to System Preferences.

2) Open up Exposé & Spaces

Exposé

3) In the middle of this window you see the default shortcuts for Exposé (F9-F11)

4) Now click on one of these, to bring up the list of possible keyboard shortcuts.

5) In this list you can see a range of possible keyboard shortcuts. You have 2 options:

Option #1: Select one of those, which are not “F”-keys

Option #2: After bringing up the list, hold down the control, command, shift or option key (you can also combine them), to adjust the keyboard shortcuts. The keys you press, are immediately reflected in the selection list, looking like this (with command pressed):

6) While still holding the modifier key(s) pick one. From this time on, use the keyboard shortcut (as command-F9 here) to invoke the Exposé functions.

Spaces

It’s the same, to adjust the keyboard shortcuts for Spaces (the feature to organize multiple desktops).

Just go over the Spaces tab and adjust the default keyboard shortcut - F8 - according to your needs (including modifier keys).

Now you can have the shortcuts for the very useful Exposé features as well as the shortcuts in your application.

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Tags: Desktop, expose, keyboard, Spaces

Related posts:

Handy shortcuts to Spaces

Quick Tip: Show all window titles simultaneously in Exposé

Control Exposé by keyboard

Introduction to keyboard shortcuts, part 2

Even more screen space (what?)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 1:21 pm and is filed under expose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.