Keyboard Volume Keys: half-steps? Quarter Steps?

you can hold shift and option while pressing volume up and down key. that will make them increment by one quarter step.

sorry but no. you can not reprogram hardware keys like the volume keys. if you really want to you can make a small applescript and bind it to some key like F5 or F6 (but not the volume key) that would increment volume say, by steps of 2 (out of 100).

Message was edited by: V.K.

ok. start automator and choose to make a service. make it available in all applications and receive no input. the service should consist of the following "run applescript" action.
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
on run {input, parameters}
set current_volume to output volume of (get volume settings)
set volume output volume current_volume + 2
beep
end run</pre>
save the service. then go to system preferences->keyboard->keyboard shortcuts->services and bind a shortcut to this service. this one increases the volume by 2 on the total scale of 0 to 100. make another one for decreasing volume.

Jalpuna wrote:
Hhhmmm. I'm doing something wrong, because when I click on the service I created,

where are you clicking on it?

it opens the script in Automator rather than turning the volume up. I tested it in Automator and it works perfectly. Am I supposed to export it somehow from Automator rather than save it?

no. when you are making a service it's automatically saved as a service in the appropriate directory. did you really make it a service?

Jalpuna wrote:
Also - when you say "make it available in all applications" I assume you mean "any application"

yes.

Jalpuna wrote:
There was a problem with my services. I had to restart before I could use them (I was just getting the "building" error. Odd!)

I've got everything working now except for one thing. In System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services, I see the new services I added in the list, but when I add a hotkey for them, it disappears as soon as I press return or click outside of the little text-input box.

ah, i forgot about this. you are trying to make a shortcut involving and F-key, right? I know that for many people (myself included) it's impossible to make a service shortcut using an F-key. I get the same exact result as you when I try. but this only concerns services. however, other posters claimed that it works ok for them. so it's something of a mystery but looks like a strange bug of some sort in SL. I managed to add a service shortcut with an F-key but it was much too tricky and involved first adding such a shortcut for something else and then copying the relevant entries in the plists containing those shortcuts.

applescript won't help here. as i said, the only way I managed to do it is by creating such a shortcut for something else and then copying and pasting the relevant plist entries. I can provide details if you really want to go that route.

ok, here is what I did before. i just tried it again with the service to increase volume and it worked again.
first, make some temporary shortcut for your service not involving F-keys.
next, add some shortcut for Dictionary.app and set it to an Fkey (I used F6). it doesn't matter what menu item in Dictionary you use. I made a shorcut for Zoom in dictionary. then open the file homedirectory/library/preferences/com.apple.dictionary.plist in Property List Editor (part of Xcode) or TextWrangler (free download). copy the value of the string entry for the shortcut you made to the clipboard. then open the file homedirectory/library/preferences/pbs.plist and paste that value in the corresponding place for the service shortcut. save the plist and log out/in. the new shortcut should work.