The Fn key normally does not have a scancode visible to the underlying OS, but it has one in the low levels, caught by the BIOS or by the keyboard driver which just maps a few Fn+Key combinations to translate them into one or more standard keycodes, but filters all other combinations (instead of exposing them for free use in an upper layer driver or application).
The scancode must certainly exist, otherwise the keyboard-specific drivers that allow mapping those extra junk keys (Calc, IE, Word, Excel, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, arrange windows in cascade or full screen, next/previous window, next/previous tab in browsers, or the extra $ and € key on Acer notebooks...) would not work at all in Windows. I would even suggest a standard Fn+Key combination to emulate any extra keys missing but needed for international keyboards. My current Logitech keyboard does not have a Windows Menu key between AltGr and Fn, the Menu key is only at Fn+PrintScreen, but there are tons of other extra junk keys, and there was ample enough space on the last row to map this key I usually use to switch to the hypervisor when running in a virtual OS, but there's no other easy replacement for this key, so I need to use the 2nd Ctrl key for this hypervisor function. I had not seen that this Menu/Application key was missing on the keyboard (it was not visible on the product description when I bought it, and not visible on the photos of the package, but the keyboard still displayed the "Designed for Windows 7".... Hmmmm really ? without the Application/Menu key ?) 2013/1/11 Stephan Stiller <[email protected]> > Those are good ideas. (This doesn't solve it for desktop computers, but > then the manufacturers of external keyboards clutter their products with > superfluous extra junk keys. But such extra keys use extra scancodes; I > don't know whether Fn generally has an associated scancode.) >
