I don't know Apple's endgame for the Fn/Globe key–or if Apple does

Comments

Comment by em-bee 21 hours ago

Twenty-seven years since Microsoft did so, Apple too wanted a Windows-style key that only they could control.

i always thought that was the command key, it even used to have an apple logo on it. and i thought it was microsoft that created the windows key because it wanted its own key like apple had.

wouldn't you also map the windows key to command when you used such a keyboard on a mac?

Comment by moritz 17 hours ago

That’s all in the article. The author goes into the confusion that it had the Apple logo on it.

Win was conceived as a modifier reserved for the OS (not to be used by applications), while command never was. Command is for commands. If you come to the Mac from Win or Linux it often helps to think of command as what ctrl does on those systems. Ctrl on the Mac started as Terminal-Emulator specific modifier— Which to this day is great, because your universal copy shortcut (cmd-c) and interrupt (ctrl-c) are different things.

Indeed one would map win to command, but only because you need another key for a modifier that‘s not ctrl or opt/alt, conceptually they are different

Comment by Someone 15 hours ago

> Ctrl on the Mac started as Terminal-Emulator specific modifier

It did, but when starting history with the first Mac, it started as being absent. The Mac initially had shift, command, and option modifiers.

Apple introduced control keys (separate left and right ones) because companies writing terminal emulators needed it.

Comment by js2 3 hours ago

> Apple introduced control keys (separate left and right ones) because companies writing terminal emulators needed it.

I'm not sure that's the correct reason.

The Apple II/III had the control key from the start. The Mac keyboard originally did not have control (nor escape.) When Apple introduced the external Apple Desktop Bus keyboard designed to be used with both the Apple IIgs and the Mac, it needed the full complement of keys to be used with both systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_keyboards#Discontinued_k...

Comment by joeframbach 22 hours ago

Is this where I can complain about command+q? All day every day I use command+tab/tilde/w/a/s, and smack in the middle of that is command q. It's like if automobile manufacturers decided to put a third pedal between the accelerator and the brake that immediately shuts off your car in the middle of the highway. And you can't disable it, instead you can map it to such helpful things like... invert colors.

Comment by dabinat 21 hours ago

For me it’s Ctrl + C / V. I will frequently hit Ctrl + C when I want to paste, and some software helpfully copies a blank line to the clipboard if nothing is selected, thus erasing whatever I copied.

Comment by sixhobbits 19 hours ago

Get a clipboard manager. Being able to access my last 20 copies instead of only 1 is definitely something I wish I set up a decade before I did.

Not only useful for mistakes but also just if you jeed to eg copy someone's bank info to separate fields without doing 4 switches from invoice to bank app

Comment by frizlab 17 hours ago

It’s builtin the OS now, via Spotlight.

Comment by aucisson_masque 16 hours ago

It's buggy, had to go back to third party application.

Comment by frizlab 14 hours ago

Ha? Never had an issue personally. I’m not a heavy user of this feature anyways, so that does not mean much…

Comment by deepsun 18 hours ago

I miss shift-insert/shift-delete.

From the days when both hands were on the keyboard.

Comment by eviks 21 hours ago

Not only can disable it, but with the right tools like Karabiner elements you can turn it into something useful - double tap cmd+Q to quit: no accidental activations, but retains muscle memory

Comment by joeframbach 21 hours ago

The fact that there is an entire _industry_ of tools to patch every little shortcoming speaks volumes of Apple's usability.

Comment by mrkpdl 17 hours ago

I’d say it says more about the flexibility of the Mac as a general purpose computing platform. It’s a sign of the health of the platform.

Comment by asdff 20 hours ago

Isn't this literally linux?

Comment by necovek 19 hours ago

With Linux systems, if there wasn't a configuration option to override something, you'd be able to create a fork and still do it. So low level layers in Linux have become flexible enough that you do not need to do it, even if there are opinionated UIs on top.

Comment by deepsun 18 hours ago

There's no need, standard settings allow to change a lot.

Comment by asdff 5 hours ago

The same levers are on macos too. People are getting caught up someone wrote a tool and released it. The fact that someone wrote a tool and released it shows it's possible and these levers exist.

Comment by deepsun 2 hours ago

Nonono, I honestly tried to set it up on MacOS myself. It's not even close to Linux by configurability.

And I'm not talking about some or CLI settings, I'm talking about built-in GUI OS "Settings" program.

Comment by nyantaro1 7 hours ago

Karabiner elements is an amazing piece of software

Comment by pulvinar 21 hours ago

In System Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts, add the shortcut: app Safari, name "Quit Safari", command-option-Q. This will leave command-Q doing nothing, yet still allow you to quit. Repeat for other apps.

Comment by eviks 21 hours ago

That's a lot of work to do it per app! And remember to do for every new app

Comment by voltaireodactyl 16 hours ago

FWIW you can do it for “all apps” in one go — I set one up for printing to PDF and it works great

Comment by eviks 16 hours ago

You can't do that because the design of the whole system is dumb - instead of matching by unique (within the app) universal (=across apps) menu item id like "quit" that's hardcoded into the framework, you must match by menu item displayed name "quit Safari", which is different for every "quit MyNewShinyApp"

PS: and sometimes the name string is also dynamic "Navigate to the latest folder named XYZ", so you can't match at all!

Comment by joeframbach 21 hours ago

Nah, I installed karabiner and set up command+q to require a three-second holddown to activate.

Comment by frizlab 17 hours ago

Not perfect, but this exists https://commandqapp.com

Comment by ksherlock 12 hours ago

I'm guessing nobody at Apple wears their WWSJD bracelet anymore, but for everyone else:

Back when I [Steve Jurvetson] was a student, I had Steve Jobs over to my house for a fireside chat with the GSB [Stanford Graduate School of Business] High Tech Club. When I asked my childhood hero if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard, he looked a little surprised to see Woz’s signature already there, and then he exclaimed, ‘This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It’s a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No.’ And with his car keys he pried it right off. ‘I’m changing the world, one keyboard at a time,’ he concluded in a calmer voice.

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/...

Personally, I would take an Apple Extended Keyboard (or II ;-) ) over anything they've sold in the past, well, whenever they stopped selling them. (Typed from my Unicomp Model M Mac)

Comment by sbinnee 21 hours ago

Wow. 55 images, all carefully prepared and placed, not a single AI-generated. I love the quality of this post. Not to mention, I learned something new and new perspectives.

Comment by krackers 6 hours ago

This isn't even their tour de force, try https://aresluna.org/frame-of-preference/

Comment by pch00 10 hours ago

Came here to say the same thing, what a wonderful post.

Comment by kdheiwns 22 hours ago

Apple just seems to be in a rush to launch half-baked features then keeps them in a weird state of stasis for years. The globe/FN key changes the keyboard layout when tapped, which is very useful since I type in multiple languages, but after a few dozen uses it simply... stops functioning. It's been broken for years. The only way I've found to fix it is to open the command line and killall Dock and killall Finder. But then language switching fails again a few more switches later. Not fixing a feature that has a whole key dedicated to it just shows how careless they've become.

Comment by cyberax 22 hours ago

If you're using multiple layouts, CapsLock is a great option for the switch key.

Comment by mh2266 21 hours ago

but then how would you press escape?

Comment by mrkpdl 1 day ago

Add to this that the Apple IIe had two keys with the Apple logo on them. One just an outline ‘open Apple’ and one a silhouette ‘closed Apple’. These two keys did different things to each other!

Comment by js2 23 hours ago

The open and closed apple keys first appeared on the Apple ///, initially next to each other on the left of the spacebar. On the Apple /// plus, the closed apple then moved to the right of the keyboard, which is what the Apple IIe inherited.

The closed apple key then appeared on the Lisa keyboard alongside an option key (both on the left of the spacebar), but the Lisa's closed Apple key acted like and is what became the Mac's command key.

https://www.nightfallcrew.com/09/12/2014/apple-iii-apple/

https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...

https://vintagecomputer.net/apple/lisa/apple_lisa_A6S0200_ke...

Comment by mrkpdl 18 hours ago

Great info!

Comment by 22 hours ago

Comment by MFHava 1 day ago

> Most crucially, both keyboards introduced a new tenant: Control (⌃). This was modifier key number four, and to this day, I don’t fully understand why ⌘ wasn’t repurposed here

Because then we would have ended up with the same mess that is Windows (and Linux for that matter) when it comes to ^C being ambiguous...

Comment by kccqzy 22 hours ago

The article states:

> The Control key is used with terminal-emulation programs for control-key sequences. For all other applications, it is reserved for end-user-defined shortcut key sequences using a macro-key facility.

I find that a good reason. It's prioritizing the experience of terminal emulation programs. Control-C means SIGINT. And also in Cocoa text controls, many Emacs keybindings with Control are available: C-a, C-e, C-k, C-b, C-f, etc. (And it's very easy to add Emacs keybindings with the Meta key too: it's a somewhat obscure functionality but Apple never broke it. I have configured my computer with M-f and M-b for example.)

Comment by bsimpson 19 hours ago

In the Classic Mac days, control really was just used for custom shortcuts.

It may have just been lack of user education, but I don't think the ctrl-a/e/etc commands to move the cursor came until they rebased onto UNIX/NeXT.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by kccqzy 22 hours ago

Why is Control-C ambiguous? Oh wait, you guys use Control-C for copy, but you have forgotten that both Windows and Linux support Control-Insert for copy. That's what I use.

Comment by comex 22 hours ago

That would not be a good approach on Macs where most users are using reduced/laptop keyboards that have no Insert key.

In this respect, Apple got pretty lucky. Most users were not using reduced keyboards in 1987 when they originally decided to add the Control key separate from Command. Plus, Mac OS didn't even have a native terminal at the time; I assume there were terminal emulators for networking/serial use but I can't imagine that was top-of-mind for Apple either.

Regardless, Cmd-C is definitely a more convenient shortcut than Control-Insert, even if you do have the keys for the latter.

Comment by kccqzy 11 hours ago

I agree with you about Cmd-C being more convenient but that’s besides the point.

My point was that on all three operating systems Ctrl-C has an unambiguous feature: send SIGINT. It is more important to have SIGINT be consistent than have copy be consistent. Accidentally sending SIGINT to a job that has been running for an hour? That hour of work may now be gone. This is a deliberate action that should not be a mistake. Copying is not that? Win+C on Windows doesn’t do any destructive actions.

Comment by Someone 15 hours ago

> Mac OS didn't even have a native terminal at the time; I assume there were terminal emulators for networking/serial use but I can't imagine that was top-of-mind for Apple either.

I think it was in their mind. The manual for the keyboard (yes, keyboards had manuals back then) says the keyboard has “special keys that work in applications running in alternative operating systems” (https://www.cvxmelody.net/Apple%20Extended%20Keyboard%20II%2...)

Comment by hug 21 hours ago

Not using the combination for one of its ambiguous purposes does not strip it of ambiguity, you've just trained yourself to avoid those circumstances.

That, of course, is one of the pain points that the article addresses: Training yourself to do so is additional cognitive load that never should have been necessary in the first place.

I flip between macOS and Linux and, occasionally, Windows. On one of my laptops, insert is also a Fn switch away, so I have to either remember that this machine needs Ctrl-Fn-F11 specifically when I'm copying from terminal.

On another keyboard I have the same problem, but insert is mapped to a different key entirely, so it is ctrl-fn-equals, and fn is on the opposite side of the keyboard from ctrl.

Contort my fingers in which way on which keyboard? Mental load and annoyance I don't need.

Comment by kccqzy 11 hours ago

That’s a hardware problem. I avoid mental load and annoyance by using the same keyboard layout everywhere. Even on Windows the bottom left modifier keys on my keyboard are Ctrl Alt Win, and not Ctrl Win Alt.

The keyboard is the most important input device on a computer. It’s worthwhile to customize your key mappings to fit your muscle memory.

Comment by estimator7292 23 hours ago

At least it's the same on all applications across the entire OS. I'd rather have it be ambiguous than change randomly

Comment by brigandish 23 hours ago

It doesn't change randomly. There are zero apps where Apple+C becomes Ctrl+C, for example. Same keys across the whole OS for cut, copy, paste; select, find; undo/redo; fullscreen, zoom; print… the list goes on.

Comment by _doctor_love 1 day ago

The button is now the shortcut for voice dictation.

At the moment, apps like Wisprflow or OpenWhispr are using it as their main shortcut, and I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before Apple integrates it as the default for Siri.

Comment by xbryanx 22 hours ago

Agreed, but my biggest problem with this, is that most external keyboards don't really have an equivalent (at least in the some location). So while I have Fn mapped to my speech to text tool (Hex), I have to figure out something else when I'm at my desktop keyboard.

Comment by vismit2000 23 hours ago

Also https://whisperanywhere.app

Comment by TrianguloY 18 hours ago

As a forced mac user at work (always used windows or Linux) the number of modifier keys is really confusing. On pc you use control almost for anything, alt for very special cases (when usually control is already taken) and the windows/meta key for os-related things. On mac a lot of shortcuts use command, but some use control, and there are a bunch that use option without a real reason why, my memory really suffers from this.

The only common thing between the two is that the fn key is only used for the special modifiers under F1-F12.

I was given a magic keyboard, and my plan was to replace it with a standard one, but then I found about the keys mapping from Karabiner, and the fn key is exactly at the control position...so I started remapping.

Now, I can do almost everything with fn+key. Fn+c=command+c, fn+s=control+s and so on.

Comment by AnonC 22 hours ago

This article covered many historical aspects I was never aware of.

> Suddenly, the globe key on the iPad and the hybrid globe/Fn key on the Mac were equipped with a million Windows-like tasks

It seems like Apple has been in a bind to make the iPad a better Mac and the Mac a better iPad while at the same time insisting that the iPad is its own device with its own purpose and that the Mac is its own device with its own purpose. IIRC, it took a long time to bring a keyboard and mouse to the iPad. Despite Apple’s repeated claims that it doesn’t see value in a touchscreen Mac, rumors point to one being launched next year (albeit with limitations).

Apple used to be good at cannibalizing its own product lines. But now it seems stuck with the desire to sell more iPads and more Macs without one cannibalizing or destroying another.

Comment by adolph 21 hours ago

> Apple used to be good at cannibalizing its own product lines.

Arguably only iPhone from iPod.

Lisa to Mac wasn't an organization being "good" so much as corporate infighting ("after Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project by Apple's board of directors, he appropriated the Macintosh project from Jef Raskin") [0].

Low End Mac's "Road Apple" features [1] list out many Apple products that were hobbled in one way or another to prevent a "consumer" product from cannibalizing higher margin "pro" products.

After 2012 Apple's pro desktops did encourage cannibalization by being rarely updated corporate vanity/art projects, which like Lisa to Mac isn't an example of being "good" at managing product transitions.

A more daring Apple would have freed the Watch from the iPhone in the same way they freed the iPhone from iTunes sync.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa

1. https://lowendmac.com/2014/road-apples-second-class-macs/

Comment by bsimpson 19 hours ago

I was born in the Mac era, but when they still printed the Apple glyph on the Command key. Therefore, I still call it the "Apple key."

I also took inspiration from ChromeOS's replacement of Caps with Search (and a popular article from that era about the history of the hyper key), and rebound Caps to be Escape. I hardly ever use the actual escape key (which is handy on a 60 key board, because they that's just the `/~ key).

Escape (Caps) by itself is Escape. Esc+A is opens the search (goto file/line/etc. in a text editor). Esc+S is the Command Palette in apps that have one.

Very handy to be able to chord keys right next to each other!

Comment by ewoodrich 8 hours ago

  > I also took inspiration from ChromeOS's replacement of Caps with Search

Hah, I do the exact same thing for the exact same reason on every new Mac/Win/Linux machine for almost a decade now. Karabiner on MacOS and PowerToys for Windows.

It’s always nice when it’s supported directly in Linux distros but sometimes have to remap it with config files or a helper tool.

On my MacBook I use Alfred now for search and Win11Debloat for Windows which ensures apps load near instantly when typing.

Comment by bsimpson 7 hours ago

I started out using Karabiner, but then when Apple added support to natively rebind Escape, it made that an easy choice.

Works great in Sublime. Have this request open for Ghostty:

https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/discussions/10499

On Linux, there's xremap. It lets you remap key chords on a per-app basis. I'm using it to use Apple-style Command shortcuts with Chrome for Linux:

https://github.com/appsforartists/device-config/blob/master/...

Comment by ankurdhama 22 hours ago

Looking at this IBM pc keyboard image in this article, where all the function keys are on the left, it makes sense that Alt+F4 and other similar shortcut on Windows made sense at that time, but these days function keys being at top row make such keyboard shortcuts unergonomic.

Comment by eviks 20 hours ago

Ignorant backwards compatibility cult in a nutshell: instead of retaining the same muscle memory or, if the keys moved, having a similarly ergonomic combo, the nominal labels are preserved, defeating the original design purpose. Same with ⌃ being a pinky not retained when ⇪ replaced it

Comment by jedberg 20 hours ago

> Same with ⌃ being a pinky not retained when ⇪ replaced it

Any time I get a new computer, one of the very first things that I do is remap Caps Lock to Ctrl for exactly this reason. I literally never use Caps Lock, but my pinky hits it all the time.

Comment by eviks 21 hours ago

> Most importantly for our conversation, the Fn key was resolved internally inside the keyboard

That's the worst part about Fn, limiting user customization and wasting keyboard space. Good that this was partially dialed back, but bad that Apple added another exclusivity barrier breaking external keyboards.

> What if Apple at some point decides that Esc means something, and you already used it for something else?

You continue to use it for something else? How is it different from any other default shortcut you don't like and change?

> It’s just a modifier key.

That should be the end game! No lock in, no weird limitations like "cannot map Mission Control to ↑"

There is no hope for Apple to make anything good out of it (⌃⌘X is their peak ergonomic design), but at least you'd be able to freely use the key yourself

Comment by jmholla 20 hours ago

> You continue to use it for something else? How is it different from any other default shortcut you don't line and change?

The author points out that Apple defaults often don't allow you to reuse them. They talk pretty far in the article about how that can't map globe+H to a different function. So, this theoretical is about them not being able to continue using their combination for what they want at Apple's whims.

Comment by eviks 19 hours ago

Blocking keybinds is from a different section of the article

Comment by fasola 20 hours ago

> You continue to use it for something else? How is it different from any other default shortcut you don't like and change?

It’s different because “you” in this context is the keyboard manufacturer, not the user.

Comment by eviks 19 hours ago

Oh, that makes more sense, thanks

Comment by koinedad 23 hours ago

Yeah my least favorite key since the globe was added. Randomly opens emoji keyboard on me

Comment by thenthenthen 20 hours ago

I love this key, I use it to switch languages and its a godsend!

Comment by 19 hours ago

Comment by evek 15 hours ago

Karabiner is the only way I managed to sync window tiling shortcuts between native Macbook and Logitech keyboard, and even that took a lot of effort due to fn/globe key special treatment.

Comment by bombcar 21 hours ago

I never noticed the Globe before, and now I know why the emoji keyboard sometimes pops up.

Comment by drcongo 14 hours ago

I'm jealous. I have to press that key about 15 times for varying durations if I want the emoji picker to show.

Comment by bombela 19 hours ago

For the Linux crowd what's your custom mapping?

For me its capslock as ctrl, super (windows key) for window management, altgr for layers, right side ctrl as compose key.

Comment by em-bee 2 hours ago

i have caps as compose. i like to have both alt and control keys to work the same way as it was always the case on US keyboards.

Comment by SSLy 15 hours ago

I have caps as control on Linux and Windows (on macOS it's command instead), rest is good choices.

Comment by armandososa 8 hours ago

offtopic: does anybody know where I can get that gorgeous pixel font from the title?

Comment by throw03172019 22 hours ago

I love my Fn/Globe key. It fires up Aqua Voice and begins transcribing. My fingers appreciate the break from typing.

Comment by 22 hours ago

Comment by astrostl 21 hours ago

Huge enabler for the mini keyboards for me: Fn + L/R for Home/End, Fn + U/D for PgUp/PgDn.

Comment by mproud 22 hours ago

Any Mac with the globe on the key is Apple Silicon.

Comment by bb88 21 hours ago

I'm so fucking tired of trying to do a super spock pinch with my keyboard. I've always thought composition of typing various keys in sequence is better than trying to press 4 keys at once, particularly if your left handed or right handed, say.

There were "compose" keys that let you type characters to combine other characters -- (not ai) but they weren't forcing the person to super spock pinch the keyboard to get the character they wanted. It was "compose" then "c" then "s" to get the "ç" character.

I honestly would like to be able to do the same thing with ctrl-alt-x, eg. where ctrl alt and x are separate key presses.

Comment by rmunn 21 hours ago

The "compose" key on Linux is one of my favorite things about the Linux keyboard system. You can pick which key is your "compose" key, choosing from about a dozen options. Then just as you describe, you type it in sequence (though on Linux, compose then c then s produces š, because compose then c is the shorthand for the "caron" diacritic: compose, c, g is ǧ, compose, c, h is ȟ, and so on).

Comment by numpad0 20 hours ago

It feels like i18n/l10n status on desktop OS is on a decline. I guess the effect of that is more profound on macOS than on Windows.

I came across this[1][2] the other day; the "bug" is that macOS Japanese input prioritize visually similar but unintended characters over ones matching in pronunciation being entered - it's hard to describe, but it's as if keyboard was autocorrecting word to "enterprising" over "entrepreneur" for entry "antreprenewer", just because the former is considered more common than the latter, or something like that. This apparently has been bugging Japanese users for YEARS, with no improvements or recognition.

I'm not saying who should prioritize what for whom, just that, I think non-English experience in modern computing environment is rapidly degrading lately, for some reason, unbeknownst to American English speakers.

1: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256258979

2: https://discussionsjapan.apple.com/thread/256258975

Comment by bombcar 21 hours ago

Isn't this what sticky keys does? https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-keyboard-set...

Comment by endospore 16 hours ago

[dead]

Comment by perryizgr8 23 hours ago

Keyboard shortcuts are truly a mess on mac os. Windows does it much better and with more consistency. That results in third party apps also having sensible shortcuts. Example: Ctrl+G is widely used in code editors for "Goto line". On Windows it makes perfect sense to use because Ctrl+ shortcuts are used for text editing everywhere. But on macos it is out of place, because there Cmd+ is the standard for text editing. But Cmd+G is used for some obscure find feature. So editors fall back to Ctrl+G which is out of place.

Comment by kccqzy 22 hours ago

The "goto line" feature on most Mac text editors is Cmd+L. And it's consistent.

On the Mac the Control shortcuts are used for text manipulation everywhere and they come from Emacs: C-a, C-e, C-f, C-b, C-k, etc. The Cmd key is not the standard for text editing; it is the standard for all app-specific commands. For example Cmd+I usually makes text italic in a word processor, but in a non-word processor app italic makes no sense, so for example in Finder it means bring up the inspector.

Comment by AnonC 22 hours ago

I don’t know why this comment is downvoted, but I don’t agree with this either because the OS (historical) conventions are different, and there may be unintuitive shortcuts on all OSes. What matters is consistency across applications on the same OS.

One point on macOS is that it’s very weak on keyboard based navigation and shortcuts for apps by default (compared to Windows). Even Apple doesn’t bother with keyboard based navigation in its own apps. One look at any app “ported” from iOS is enough. Apple hasn’t even spent time to check what the Tab key does in these apps. It’s a shame.

Comment by 22 hours ago

Comment by sheept 21 hours ago

ctrl+G may also mean "find next" on Windows (e.g. in Chrome), so it's not particularly obscure.

At least in VS Code, ctrl+G on Mac is the shortcut for "goto line" (but yes, cmd+G is "find next")

Comment by perilunar 22 hours ago

> Cmd+G is used for some obscure find feature

How is find next 'obscure'?

Comment by rgoulter 23 hours ago

While this is a problem for the default user experience, I think if you're an enthusiast there's less of a problem because you can get an external keyboard you like.

Laptop keyboards will always be disliked by someone: the standard keyboard layout is awful, and dealing with this either involves trying to stick to the conventional design (wherein different people will dislike different changes); whereas a good keyboard design is going to be so far from the standard keyboard that laptops aren't going to do that.

(People will quibble about where to put the arrow keys or however many modifier keys there are or that caps lock is badly placed.. but the most glaring issue is that the spacebar doesn't need to be over 6x the size of other keys).

It's a problem if the OS is inconsistent/unclear about what scan codes are required to do things.

Comment by endospore 16 hours ago

> the OS is inconsistent/unclear about what scan codes are required to do things.

Both that, and there's an internal list that allows only Apple's (plus a few makers' like Logitech and Keychron) keyboard to _send_ the modifier keycode. Others are simply ignored. Sorry enthusiasts, Apple don't want to favor you.

https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/issues/2179

Comment by tom_ 22 hours ago

My Mac has no keyboard, it's just a metal box that sits on your desk - so an external keyboard is the only option. Nobody told me I had to get any specific type in particular!

It looks like you can still use hidutil to remap some other key. This invocation seems to remap the Application key to the fn key:

    sudo hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000065,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0xFF00000003}]}'

On my keyboard, metakeywise, I then have 2 x Shift, 2 x Ctrl, 2 x Option (marked Alt), 2 x Command (marked Start), 1 x undetectable-to-macOS (marked Fn), and 1 x Fn (got that little Windows context menu logo on it).

Comment by junk245435254 20 hours ago

Yep, this is what I have in my Bash config, for the external Microsoft Natural Keyboard attached to my Mac:

    # note: works for e.g. Fn-F (fullscreen), but not Fn-F{1..12} (brightness etc.)
    alias app2fn+=$'hidutil property --set \'{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000065,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0xFF00000003}]}\''
    alias app2fn-=$'hidutil property --set \'{"UserKeyMapping":[]}\''
    alias app2fn?=$'hidutil property --get "UserKeyMapping"'

Comment by hinkley 23 hours ago

I have an external keyboard and I keep accidentally hitting the fn key when I mean to hit backspace. And that toggles the keyboard layout if you have more than one.