Holding down the CTRL key and pressing the F1 key on your keyboard is used to
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Fn. How are you supposed to pronounce “Fn”? Not “function,” certainly; after all, the F-keys on the top row are already known as function keys. And not “fun”; goodness knows, the Fn key isn’t particularly hilarious to press. Show What it does, though, is quite clear: It changes the purpose of certain keys. That’s a big deal on laptops, which don’t have nearly as many keys as desktop keyboards. So for some of the less commonly used functions, you’re supposed to press Fn and a regular key. (For example, Fn turns thekey into a Page Up key, which scrolls upward by one screenful.) NoteOn most Mac keyboards, the Fn key is in the lower-left corner. The exception is the full-size Apple desktop keyboard (the one with a numeric keypad); there, the Fn key is in the little block of keys between the letter keys and the number pad. You’ll find many more Fn examples in the following paragraphs.  Figure 1-6. On the top row of aluminum Mac keyboards, the F-keys have dual functions. Ordinarily, the F1 through F4 keys correspond to Screen Dimmer, Screen Brighter, Exposé, and Dashboard. Pressing the Fn key in the corner changes their personalities, though. Numeric keypad. The number-pad keys do exactly the same thing as the numbers at the top of the keyboard. But with practice, typing things like phone numbers and prices is much faster with the number pad, since you don’t have to look down at what you’re doing. Apple has been quietly eliminating the numeric keypad from most of its keyboards, but you can still find it on some models. ,(F1, F2). These keys control the brightness of your screen. Usually, you can tone it down a bit when you’re in a dark room or when you want to save laptop battery power; you’ll want to crank it up in the sun. (F3). This one fires up Mission Control, the handy window-management feature described in Chapter 4. or(F4). Tap thekey to open Dashboard, the archipelago of tiny, single-purpose widgets like Weather, Stocks, and Movies. Chapter 4 describes Dashboard in detail. On recent Macs, the F4 key bears alogo instead. Tapping it opens Launchpad, which is described on Launchpad. ,(F5, F6). Most recent Mac laptops have light-up keys, which is very handy indeed when you’re typing in the dark. The key lights are supposed to come on automatically when it’s dark, but you can also control the illumination yourself by tapping these keys. (On most other Macs, the F5 and F6 keys aren’t assigned to anything. They’re free for you to use as you see fit.) ,, and(F7, F8, F9). These keys work in the programs you’d expect: iTunes, QuickTime Player, DVD Player, and other programs where it’s handy to have Rewind, Play/Pause, and Fast Forward buttons. TipTap eitherorto skip to the previous or next track or chapter. Hold one down to rewind or fast-forward. ,,(F10, F11, F12). These three keys control your speaker volume. Thekey means Mute; tap it once to cut off the sound completely and again to restore its previous level. Tap therepeatedly to make the sound level lower, thekey to make it louder. With each tap, you see a big white version of each key’s symbol on your screen, your Mac’s little nod to let you know it understands your efforts. TipIf you hold down the Shift and Option keys, then tapping the volume keys adjusts the volume by smaller increments, just as with the brightness keys. . This is the Eject key. When there’s a CD or DVD in your Mac, tap this key to make the computer spit it out. If your Mac doesn’t have a DVD drive (modern ones don’t), it doesn’t have this key, either. Home, End. The Home key jumps to the top of a window, the End key to the bottom. If you’re looking at a list of files, then the Home and End keys jump to the top or bottom of the list. In iPhoto, they jump to the first or last photo in your collection. In iMovie, the Home key rewinds your movie to the very beginning. In Safari, they send you to the top or bottom of the Web page. (In Word, they jump to the beginning or end of the line. But then again, Microsoft has always had its own ways of doing things.) On keyboards without a dedicated block of number keys, you get these functions by holding down Fn as you tap theandkeys. Pg Up, Pg Down. These keys scroll up or down by one screenful. The idea is to let you scroll through word-processing documents, Web pages, and lists without having to use the mouse. On keyboards without a numeric keypad, you get these functions by pressing Fn plus theandkeys. Esc. Esc stands for Escape, and it means “cancel.” It’s fantastically useful. It closes dialog boxes, closes menus, and exits special modes like Quick Look, slideshows, screen savers, and so on. Get to know it. Delete. The Backspace key. ⌘. This key triggers keyboard shortcuts for menu items. Control. The Control key triggers shortcut menus. Option. The Option key (labeled Alt on keyboards in some countries) is sort of a “miscellaneous” key. It’s the equivalent of the Alt key in Windows. It lets you access secret features—you’ll find them described all through this book—and type special symbols. For example, you press Option-4 to get the ¢ symbol, and Option-Y to get the ¥ (yen) symbol. Help. In the Finder, Microsoft programs, and a few other places, this key opens up the electronic help screens. But you guessed that. |
