Mac: Where did my Backspace key go?
My Mac keyboard has taken a bit of adjusting for me, especially coming from Windows. It's not that it's difficult, just that I still spend a lot of time on my Windows machine and moving between the two keyboards can be a bit frustrating at times.The MacBook adds to that challenge because it doesn't have some of the keys that I've become used to having on a full size keyboard. Where the Backspace key is on my Windows machine is a key labeled Delete. It performs the same function as a Backspace key on Windows though - so far so good.
The Delete key on my Windows machines (usually Del since it's a small key) doesn't exist on my MacBook. For the first month or so I accepted that I had to move past a letter and back over it with Delete in order to remove it. I like the fact that my keyboard has keys that have a little space between them - cutting down the key count by not including Del, Page up, Page Down, etc. means that I don't have a cramped keyboard like I do on my other HP laptop. It was a reasonable compromise from my standpoint.
What I just found out though was that I can Delete forward on a MacBook keyboard by holding down the "fn" (Function) key and hitting Delete.
So where are the other missing keys?
| Full Keyboard | MacBook Keyboard |
|---|---|
| Delete (Forward) | fn-Delete |
| Home | fn-Left Arrow |
| End | fn-Right Arrow |
| Page Up | fn-Up Arrow |
| Page Down | fn-Down Arrow |
Happy typing!
Comments
http://www.danrodney.com/mac/index.html
i find it useful
If i type: http://davidalison.com/ i get a GoDaddy page. But if i type http://www.davidalison.com/ i get to your box. You may want to check your host setting.
:-)
http://www.tacowidgets.com/index.php
If you go back to pre computer times, the true backspace key on typewriters never erased anything. Instead the function was there to move back one to then be able to type an accent character over the letter you just typed. IE, you would type a [backspace] ' to get á. This seems to have been examined by the Apple designers, hence they used delete to indicate text would be going away, instead of confusing the backspace key as doing something different then the typewriter key did.
Another interesting split in decisions is the whole ctrl, alt, and (windows/apple) key split. Windows chose to use Ctrl for a lot of GUI shortcuts, even though in the terminal days, Ctrl already was used for a lot of different shortcuts. Ctrl-C for example was never copy at a terminal, it was break execution. Apple used a 3rd modifier key to avoid trampling on terminal commands, while Microsoft only added a third modifier key in Windows 95. Because of it's late entrance into the GUI world, it's never done much beyond trivial tasks, where as the entire Mac OS GUI is build around Apple-blah shortcuts.
http://tinyurl.com/2xymvp is a good read on this topic. It's a shame how fragmented this got, as unification at this point is nearly difficult without one side redefining a lot of things and causing a lot of programs to break.
How Apple Keyboards Lost a Logo
Thanks Tom!
If the key combination they are looking for is delete, that didn't work for me so I assume it's wrong.
I thought perhaps it was a backspace, which I am yet to find.
Would like to easily be able to delete a file with keystrokes.
Suggestions and help are much appreciated!
Thanks... another new MAC user!
subsymi
command
⌘
To delete a file in the Finder by using the keyboard first select the file then hold that Command key and hit the "delete" button, which is to the right of the + / = key on standard US keyboards.
I'm not sure if the keys are labeled in the same way or reside in the same position on non-US keyboards.
You've saved me much time and heartache.
Leena
Philip
You can also select individual files by holding Command down while clicking files.
If you are using icon view, then you'll need to click and drag to make a selection. Personally I always view the finder in List view - much easier to sort that way.
Hope this helps...
I own an iMac and purchased the extended keyboard just so I could get both keys.
Who knew there was a simple fix. I don't think the Apple store employees knew this either.