On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 01:06:20PM -0700, Nate Eldredge wrote: > On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Gary Kline wrote: > >> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 01:06:29PM +0200, Dag-Erling Sm?rgrav wrote: >>> martinko <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>>> I have always thought that Fn key in left most bottom corner of the >>>> keyboard is, especially for programmers, a very bad idea. :-( >>> >>> Seconded. Worse still, on my Lenovo T60, if the Fn key is held down >>> longer than a fraction of a second, it generates an input event which >>> just happens to correspond to Gnome's default key binding for the "next >>> track" function in media players... >> >> I've seen that Fn key, but don't know what it is for. What? you press >> it, then follow with the integers [ 1, 2, 3 ... ]? At any rate, maybe >> you can remap the key with ~/.xmodmaprc. > > Fn is usually used on laptop keyboards to allow two logical keys to share > a single physical key. For example, see the keyboard pictured at > http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/3415.jpg . On the extreme lower > right is a key with "->" in white and "End" in blue. Pressing it by > itself sends the keycode corresponding to an ordinary keyboard's "->" > key. Holding Fn and pressing that key sends the keycode corresponding to > an ordinary keyboard's "End" key. On many keyboards, pressing Fn by > itself sends no keycode at all, so it cannot be remapped. > > It is also sometimes used to control hardware features which on a desktop > machine might have a different interface. For instance, on the laptop > pictured, holding Fn and pressing F6 would increase the screen > brightness, probably without sending a keycode. A desktop machine would > probably have a button on the monitor itself to do this.
I always figured "Fn" was a good name for the key, given that it resembles the expletive that comes forth from my mouth when intending to hit Control. http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/9328.jpg ;-) -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc at parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB | _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
