MAC: Keyboard Control Panel

The Keyboard Control Panel is where you choose which language keyboard layouts you would like to have available for your use, set the key repeat rate and how long you would like to hold a key down before it does repeat and to assign functions to the F-Keys.

Here is the first window of the Keyboard Control Panel.

If you have other languages installed you can choose their scripts from the popup menu

You can also choose the country standard keyboard layouts that you want to use. If you want to see what a particular layout looks like, choose it and then open Key Caps to view it.

If you have chosen more than one layout you will find a keyboard menu towards the right end of your menu bar, as shown below. From there you can easily switch between layouts.

This is great when you need access to diacritical marks found in many languages.

You will also notice that if you hold down a key, after a moment the computer types that character repeatedly. The Key Repeat Ratecontrols how fast the character is repeated and the Delay Until Repeat controls how long you hold a key before that repeat is initiated.

 If you don't like the repeating character feature you can turn it off by setting the Delay Until Repeat to Off.

 New in OS9 you can assign actions to the Function Keys. Click on the Function Keys button and you will see the following window. Click on one of "F" buttons and you can navigate to a file, folder, AppleScript or program which you would like to be opened with the F key.

Be careful, iBooks and some programs do use the F keys for some functions and conflicts can arise. That is why there is the setting to use the option key in conjunction with the F keys. So far I haven't found any programs which use that key combination and is the setting I use.

The Function Key Setting will set the Option Key as a modifier that has to be use to get these Funtion Key settings to work. Many other programs make use of the function keys so you might want to use this setting.