CODEWITHSUNDEEP
intellij-idea
GhostCat
GhostCat

Reputation: 140553

Function keys not working on MacOs with external Mac keyboard?

Example: according to the menu, the keyboard shortcut for Find Usages should be option F7.

When I use the built-in keyboard, and actually press fn + Shift + 7 ... it works as expected.

When I use my external Magic 2 Apple keyboard, and press option + F7 ... nothing happens?!

What am I doing wrong?

Update: I just figured that my external keyboard has a fn key as well. So when I press fn + option + F7 that works. But that is super cumbersome (the fn key is to the right of backspace, it is hard to press that together with any function key).

Upvotes: 5

Views: 8978

Answers (3)

noodl_es
noodl_es

Reputation: 1476

The Karabiner-Elements utility lets you customise all of your function keys as well as others. You can even set rules only for specific devices.

Screenshot of Karabiner-Elements function key mapping screen

It also has an Event Viewer utility which lets you test what the keys on your keyboard are actually doing.

Screenshot of Karabiner-Elements Event Viewer utility for testing text input events

For me, it helped me discover that most of the keys in the top row of my Mac USB Extended Keyboard don't actually work and I was able to map the escape key to one that does.

Screenshot of Karabiner-Elements Simple Modifications screen

It can be installed via homebrew with the following command:

brew install --cask karabiner-elements

Upvotes: 1

iTechWA
iTechWA

Reputation: 1

The most useful Function key on a Macbook is F3 ...to jump between multiple screens or windows. However, when you plug in an external keyboard the F3 key does not work as it did on the Macbook (Dell keyboard , F3 is audio increase) F3 on Macbook is actually "Mission Control" and same functionality can be achieved by hitting "control" (or ^) plus the "up-arrow" key. This may differ from Osx versions but can be confirmed by going to "System" > "Keyboard Shortcuts" > "Mission Control" to see what shortcut is assigned to "Mission Control"

Upvotes: -1

CrazyCoder
CrazyCoder

Reputation: 402335

Change the behavior of function keys on your Mac document is probably what you are looking for:

If you prefer the top row of keys to always behave as standard function keys without holding the Fn key:

  1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
  2. Click Keyboard.
  3. Click the Keyboard tab if it's not already highlighted.
  4. Select "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys"

Upvotes: 5

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