Hi Anouk,

a radix wrote:

> Hello, i took my macbook pro to school today and it went well for  
> the most part, although apparently one of the fkeys or other keys in  
> the top row freezes the keyboard which i found out by accident.
> I wonder though, i know there is the window chooser and the  
> application chooser but is there a command like contro ltab or  
> something to quickly and immediately switch between different  
> windows in one program? That would still be quicker then the window  
> user,

You've already been given the window switching option of Command- 
(grave) accent that switches between all windows of the currently  
active application.  The key may be in a different location on a non- 
English keyboard, but for me the accent key is at the far left, beside  
the "1" key and under the "Escape" key.  If you turn on keyboard  
practice mode (VO-K to start, press escape to stop), you'll hear the  
names of each key announced when you press it.

It sounds as though you pressed one of the Exposé keys (F9, F10 or  
F11) if you thought you froze the keyboard by pressing an F key.   
Exposé is a visually based window chooser -- kind of like using icon  
view mode instead of list view mode in Finder -- and I described it in  
another post that I made a few minutes ago.  Just press the same key  
again to leave this mode. Exposé is waiting for you to select a window  
to switch to by clicking with your mouse.  If you press the Exposé key  
again, it will return focus  to your current window.  (I wrote to  
accessibility suggesting that there should be a VoiceOver feature to  
easily disable Exposé, because I don't imagine that any visually  
impaired person will use this. The key assignments also conflicts with  
key mappings people might want to assign to Windows if they use Fusion.

This is somewhat confusing under Snow Leopard, because on a laptop you  
may have set up the Exposé key to be Fn+F10 or it could be F10. If you  
go to the System Preferences Menu (VO-M, arrow down, press "s y",  
press enter) and go to the Keyboard and Mouse button (VO-I, for item  
chooser menu, press "K" to go to "Keyboard and Mouse" menu entry,  
press enter), press the button (VO-Space).  In the "Keyboard & Mouse"  
window, VO-Right arrow to the "General" tab and make sure it is  
selected (press with VO-Space if needed). VO-Right arrow to the  
checkbox for "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys"   
When this option is selected, press the Fn key to use the special  
features printed on each key.

You can use VO-Space to check or uncheck this box.  If this box is  
checked, on a laptop with VoiceOver running you, the defaults are:

Turn VoiceOver on and off with Command-F5

and you

Mute volume with Fn+F10;  F10 is the Exposé key to select from all  
Windows
Decrease volume with Fn+F11; F11 is the Exposé key to show Desktop
Increase volume with Fn+F12; F12 is the key to hide/show Dashboard

If the box to use F keys as standard function keys is unchecked, you

Mute volume with F10; Fn+F10 is the Exposé key to select from  
Application Windows
Decrease volume with F11; Fn+F11 is the Exposé key to show Desktop
Increase volume with F12; Fn+F12 is the key to hide/show Dashboard

Here is a list of the F key actions for the newer keyboards (meaning  
MacBooks from November 2007 and later, MacBook Pros from February 2008  
and later, the new Unibody MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs)  
from the MacRumors guides:

http://guides.macrumors.com/Keyboard_shortcuts

<begin excerpt>
F1      decrease brightness (command+F1 changes display mode, option+F1  
brings up display prefs)
F2      increase brightness (option+F2 brings up display prefs)
F3      exposé (F3 shows all windows, control+F3 shows app windows, option 
+F3 brings up exposé prefs, command+F3 shows desktop)
F4      dashboard (option+F4 brings up exposé prefs)
F5      decrease keyboard brightness for backlit keyboards (option+F5  
brings up keyboard prefs)
F6      increase keyboard brightness for backlit keyboards (option+F6  
brings up keyboard prefs)
F7      media navigation backwards (like hitting back on Apple Remote)
F8      media play/pause (like hitting play/pause on Apple Remote)
F9      media navigation forwards (like hitting next on Apple Remote)
F10     mute volume (option+F10 brings up sound prefs)
F11     decrease volume (option+shift+F11 for incremental decrease, option 
+F11 brings up sound prefs)
F12     increase volume (option+shift+F12 for incremental increase, option 
+F12 brings up sound prefs)
<end excerpt>

The media function keys (F7, F8, and F9) let you reverse, play/pause,  
and forward in various players (iTunes, VLC, DVD player, etc.)  and  
control the playback even when that application is playing in the  
background, and another app has focus.

On my MacBook I have the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard  
function keys" box checked, so I would adjust volume, brightness, etc.  
without first pressing the "Fn" key prefix, and I would also press the  
F7, F8, and F9 keys directly (without "Fn" prefix) to reverse, play/ 
pause, or forward search.  If for some reason I wanted to run the  
Exposé "All windows" option from the F9 key (can't think why, smile),  
I would have to press Fn+F9.

If the key to use all F1, etc. keys as standard function keys is  
unchecked, then you need to press Fn in combination with all the  
listed F key shortcuts to run those functions.

Hope this hasn't been too confusing.

Cheers,

Esther



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