Since my preferred keyboard is an old-school buckling-spring EnduraPro 104, these settings have been a great boon to me.
#Where is mac command key on pc keyboard mac#
So if you like to use a Windows keyboard with your Mac for whatever reason, these modifier keys settings will help keep you sane. So you can turn it off altogether as I've done here, or you can set it to emulate one of the other keys (as Unix and Linux aficionados sometimes like to do). Personally I find Caps Lock worse than useless as I sometimes inadvertently hit it. You'll also note that the Modifier Keys dialog lets you take care of another annoyance, the anachronistic Caps Lock key. So to make a Windows keyboard work like a Mac keyboard just change the option key to the command key and the command key to the option key as follows:
There if you click on the "Modifier Keys." button you'll be taken to a dialog where you can easily remap the keys. Fortunately, there's a simple solution to this problem in the Keyboard tab of the Keyboard & Mouse Preference Pane. So if, like me, your keyboard shortcut muscle memory is to the key next to the spacebar then all your shortcuts get messed up on a Windows keyboard. The reason this is a problem is that on a Windows keyboard the Alt key is right next to the spacebar (where the Command key is on a Mac keyboard). For some reason the keyboard Windows key is mapped to the Mac Command key and the keyboard Alt key is mapped to the Mac Alt or option key. Well a lot of those keyboards will of course be Windows keyboards, and while they work fine on a Mac, there's one particularly annoying thing. No dots means the confirmation step is removed, so you can perform any of the three commands in one fell swoop.You may recall that one of Apple's slogans when the Mac mini was released was BYOKM-bring your own keyboard and mouse. If you press the Option key when the menu is visible, you'll notice the dots disappear from Restart, Shut Down and Log Out commands. Its menu lets you restart or shut down your Mac and view system information. On the other side of the menu bar, in the upper-left corner of your Mac, sits the Apple icon. Option-click the Dropbox icon, for example, and you can see how much of your storage allotment you have used.
The Option key also works with third-party menu bar icons.
#Where is mac command key on pc keyboard Bluetooth#
For the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth buttons, Option-click reveals more in-depth information about your network and connected devices, respectively. Option-click the volume icon and you'll get a menu that allows you to change the input source or output device. You can use the Option key with other menu bar items to access different or expanded menus. When the icon is grayed out, Do Not Disturb is on when the icon is black, Do Not Disturb is off. Just hold down the Option key when you click the Notification Center icon. You can reduce this click-swipe-click process to a single click by employing the Option key. You need to click the Notification Center icon in the upper-right corner of your Mac and then scroll down a bit to reveal the Do Not Disturb toggle switch at the top. On the Mac, thats always been easy to fix, thanks to a preference screen for switching these. You can also use the Command-Q shortcut in the app switcher to quit the app you have highlighted.ĭo Not Disturb is oddly hidden in Notification Center. If you hooked up a PC keyboard to your iPad, then the and keys would be the wrong way around. Just above the tab key is the ~ (tilde) key you can use it to move left through your open apps while continuing to hold down the Command key. While continuing to hold down the Command key, hit Tab again to move right through your open apps.
Hit Command-Tab to open the app switcher. You can use the Dock to switch apps, but your Mac also has an app switcher. To perform this maneuver on a Mac, press Function-Delete. The delete key on a Windows keyboard does the opposite and deletes the character to the right of the cursor. That is, it deletes the character to the left of the cursor. The delete key on a Mac, however, acts like the backspace key on a Windows keyboard. On a Mac keyboard, you get only a delete key. Windows keyboards have a backspace key and a delete key. The missing backspace key on a Mac keyboard is another difference that might trip up Windows converts. To quit the app, use the keyboard shortcut Command-Q. Unlike with Windows, the X button on a Mac closes the window but does not quit the app. If you are coming to Mac after a long tenure with Windows, then you might get tripped up when you click the red X in the upper-left corner of a window only to discover that the app is still running after the window closes. Here are ten shortcuts for general Mac use that didn't fit in any of the above apps. I've covered shortcuts for Finder, iTunes, Safari and Spotlight.