how do I get back the keyboard shortcuts that were in Snow Leopard?

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how do I get back the keyboard shortcuts that were in Snow Leopard?

How do I get back the keyboard shortcuts that were in Snow Leopard into Mountain Lion?

On the Keyboard Control Panel in System Preferences, it says "To change a shortcut, double-click the shortcut and hold down the new keys" but when I do that - trying to assign "Show Desktop" to F6, back to the way it was in Snow Leopard, all that happens is the warning sound sounds, but the shortcut remains the same - some symbol I cannot find on my keyboard, the arrow pointing down, and the carat (Shift-F6, I think).

What I would like to do is to have the F keys go back to the way they were in Snow Leopard, or else have a more thorough explanation of which keys control which shortcuts in Mission Control. (I was able to change Mission Control to F6 yesterday, but don't remember how I did that.)

Would have been nice if an instruction booklet was included with the download of Mountain Lion, but there isn't even one posted online that I could find 😟

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, 4 GB

Posted on Jul 31, 2012 12:41 PM

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Answer 1

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Tuttle

Level 7

29,541 points

Jul 31, 2012 12:45 PM in response to E. Kennedy

⌃ represents the Control key.

⌥ represents the Option key.

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Answer 2

E. Kennedy Author

Level 2

213 points

Jul 31, 2012 12:52 PM in response to Tuttle

thanks for the clarification on that! 🙂

would still like to return things to the way they were in Snow Leopard - don't really have any idea why they would have changed it 😟

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Answer 3

Tuttle

Level 7

29,541 points

Jul 31, 2012 1:12 PM in response to E. Kennedy

Because change is good! 😉

From your picture, I see that you've changed Show Desktop from F11 to ⌃↓ Would you want to change that back for consistency? Default for Mission Control is F9. Along with F10 showing application windows, those functions (F9, F10, F11) should be easy to remember....

Also, if you have a trackpad, (Magic or built in), many of these items are set up to use with simple gestures that are easy to get used to.

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Answer 4

E. Kennedy Author

Level 2

213 points

Jul 31, 2012 5:42 PM in response to Tuttle

actually, the only thing I changed was the Mission Control to F6...didn't remember, so reset defaults and the picture below is what it looks like after I reset them...

when reset to defaults, Mission Control went back to ^↑ (from F6) and Show Desktop stayed the same at ^↓...also F10, F11, and F12 control speaker volume and F9 works as fast-forward on video files, as they did with Snow Leopard...

don't know if change is ALWAYS good, but in this case, I have my doubts, but thanks for your post! 🙂

p.s. how did you make the arrows? didn't see those keys on my keyboard, so used Character Viewer to put them in this post...are there keys for them? looked through the options in keyboard viewer and didn't see them either...thanks.

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Answer 5

Tuttle

Level 7

29,541 points

Jul 31, 2012 5:54 PM in response to E. Kennedy

Haven't seen those as defaults.

p.s. how did you make the arrows? didn't see those keys on my keyboard, so used Character Viewer to put them in this post..

Me too!

Could have used ↓ I guess, but not always in the mood to switch back and forth from the HTML screen here.

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Answer 6

E. Kennedy Author

Level 2

213 points

Aug 1, 2012 1:00 PM in response to Tuttle

thanks for the reply, but those are the shortcuts I got when I restored keyboard shortcuts to defaults. is there a difference between the keyboard shortcuts on a MacBook and an iMac's keyboards? don't know what you're using, but I'm using my early-2008 Intel iMac and the keyboard that it came with...doesn't seem like there should be any difference, but...

seems to me that changing a keyboard shortcut from one key to two isn't really progress 😉 lol and still don't know why I can't change the shortcuts using the method it actually tells people to use in the keyboard shortcut System Prefs window...weird 😕 lol

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