How do I reprogram a key on my Mac?

April 4, 2006 3:06 PM

How do I reprogram the "end" key on my PowerBook?

I knocked the "page down" key off my PowerBook's keyboard. How can I reprogram the little-used "end" key to work as a "page down" key? It seems like it should be so simple, but I can't figure out how. I'm running Mac OS 10.3.9.

posted by The corpse in the library to computers & internet (6 answers total)

I can't remember off-hand, but if you walk your Powerbook into any Apple store, they'll probably be able to replace your end-key on the spot.
posted by nathan_teske at 4:01 PM on April 4, 2006

How did you knock off the "page down" key? If you've popped off the keycap and lost it or broke the clasps on it, and the white 'scissors' still exist, you could pop off the "end" key and snap it on to the "page down" location. I've popped keys off-and-on my Powerbook many times with no ill effects. Here is what the white scissor bits look like under the keycaps.
posted by todbot at 4:08 PM on April 4, 2006

If you do a Google search for os x remap keyboard you find some very promising results. In general, what you want to do is called "remapping" and not "reprogramming". (To list some of the results: uControl might work; DoubleCommand also seems almost exactly what you want; and fKeys seems less mature but possibly more configurable.)
posted by skynxnex at 5:15 PM on April 4, 2006

It involves some twiddling with text files, but this should set you on the right track.

(Really, though, might as well just fix the broken key.)
posted by designbot at 5:16 PM on April 4, 2006

these folks sell keyboard replacements and parts. snoop around; they have single replacement keys. might be more worthwhile. a lot of keys are hard to re-map. i ran into this on my pro keyboard when trying to use the damned F14-F16 keys (info here, in case anyone's looking).
posted by patricking at 9:21 PM on April 4, 2006

Since people asked... I broke it off while trying to get some crud out from under it. I took it to an Apple store and they want a few hundred bucks to fix it -- they say they'd have to replace the entire keyboard, because the little rubber nubby bit is gone too.

Thanks for the tips. I'll try them out.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:17 AM on April 6, 2006