May 15, '05 11:28:00AM • Contributed by: EatingPie
Way back when, I set my PowerBook's useless (to me anyway) Fn key to trigger Exposé. Cool and all, but I found I never used Exposé -- except when I hit the Fn key by accident! Along came Dashboard, and I knew my Fn key would finally find its ... er ... function! But the Dashboard and Exposé prefs panel didn't allow me to set it for Dashboard -- it was only available in the pop-up list for Exposé. D'oh!
Well, I don't give up easily, and although it was a lot harder than I anticipated, I figured out how to set Fn for Dashboard. Read on, though this ain't for the faint of heart!
Here's what I did...
- From the Terminal, you need to convert a binary plist file to ASCII XML format so you can edit it. Alternatively, if you have the Developer Tools installed, you can open it with "Property List Editor" and skip this step. Type the following (the $ is just the prompt; don't type that):
$ cd ~/Library/Preferences $ plutil -convert xml1 com.apple.symbolickeys.plist -o com.apple.symbolickeys.xml - Use your favorite editor on the new file:
$ vi com.apple.symbolickeys.xml - Go to the end of the file (look for 62), and change the following largish block of text. Here's the original:
Replace the above with the following:<key>62</key> <dict> <key>enabled</key> <false/> </dict> <key>63</key> <dict> <key>enabled</key> <false/> </dict>
I told you it was scary!<key>62</key> <dict> <key>enabled</key> <true/> <key>value</key> <dict> <key>parameters</key> <array> <integer>8388608</integer> <integer>8388608</integer> </array> <key>type</key> <string>modifier</string> </dict> </dict> <key>63</key> <dict> <key>enabled</key> <true/> <key>value</key> <dict> <key>parameters</key> <array> <integer>8519680</integer> <integer>8519680</integer> </array> <key>type</key> <string>modifier</string> </dict> </dict> - Save your changes, quit the editor, and convert the XML file back to binary:
plutil -convert binary1 com.apple.symbolickeys.xml -o com.apple.symbolickeys.plist - Log out out or reboot for your changes to show up.
