I’m using a Mac laptop, and so don’t have a lot of the standard “useless keys”. That said, though:
I never intentionally use Caps Lock, which never does anything but cause trouble.
I use the lower-numbered F# keys sometimes for games and the like, and some of the higher ones have hardware controls like volume on them, but I don’t think I ever use F9, and F7 only very rarely.
I would use all of the numpad keys, if I had a numpad.
And folks might be gratified to learn that chromebooks don’t have a Caps Lock key at all. Leave it to Google to finally remove the “screw everything up” key.
About half of them. The entire top row of the main/left hand section (all the Fs and stuff), the top of the center section (F13 through page down), and the whole right side/calculator section. Basically I use the typewriter equal keys and the four arrows and nothing else.
There are no keys I don’t use at least now and then.
Probably the least used key is the Insert/Help key. For awhile I had a macro in several programs that would override it and make it do nothing, to prevent invoking the slow and annoying Help from popping up if I bumped the key by accident. But every rare now and then there’s some oddball program that actually uses the key, and uses it to do something that I would invoke on purpose.
The row of F-keys doesn’t get much action but I do assign macros to them, and the built-in one on my laptop doubles as hardware controllers (screen lighten or darken, volume louder or softer, etc).
F1 is a very common short-cut to help menus. In MS Office, I hit F1 all the doggone time!
Ah! Thanks! Explains my ignorance; I’ve never had the joy of working on a Mac.
I know, in the abstract, that the Registry can be edited manually, to good effect. But in my mind, it’s too much like “machine language.” It’s at a level I don’t really grok. I depend on interfaces. (I took one assembly language class in college…and while it was informative, it clearly convinced me to stick with the higher level applications!)
I think the only keys I don’t use regularly are the Insert key and the Scroll Lock key. They only get hit by accident.
The tilde/accent key (to the left of the 1 key) is my go-to reassign- if I want quick access to a command/function in a game, that is usually the key I assign. I use the right CTRL and ALT keys for the one-handed three-finger salute (index on ALT, thumb on CTRL, pinky on DELETE). I use the right Windows key to access Windows 10 settings (WIN + I). I use the context menu key whenever my mouse battery dies and I want to finish what I am working on before I go find batteries.
The pause/break key is never one I’ve found particularly useful. I’d simply use | more in DOS or | less in Linux whenever I wanted one screen at a time, or use > file.txt if the output was larger and I didn’t want to read through it all right then and there.
I wish someone had taught me about PrtScr a lot earlier. I actually stumbled onto it by myself, and now it’s one of the most valuable functions my computer offers me!
I’ve only ever pressed Scroll Lock by accident and each time it left me wondering why my Excel spreadsheet was broken. Finally I got so sick of it that I just popped the key off of my work keyboard. Problem solved!
You’ve got an old keyboard. I think that’s the fn key on modern keyboards (full size). What version of Mac OS are you running? I’m just curious whether or not it actually works as Help, or works as fn?
My primary computer is a laptop, so I use a number of the Function keys for various uses, but I don’t recall the last time I used the F3 or F9 keys.
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever purposely used the ‘right-click menu’ key (between the right Alt and Ctrl keys on my keyboard): Shift-F10 performs the same function whenever I need it.
In Thailand, the little-used or ~ are the signals to toggle between Thai and English keyboards. At least 99% of users don't miss the ability to type a or ~, but the latter key is used in the C programming language and in an important Unix/Cygwin command-line short-cut. And the backquote ` is part of a Unix command-line feature almost amazing in its power! Changing this is one of the fixes needed whenever I start operating with a new computer.
Mention that I never touch the Fn keys has revealed the secret that I’m not up to speed on Microsoft Office. I use programs like awk and a.out for my spreadsheet needs.
My laptop has an f12 button with what looks like an airplane image on it. I’ve never touched that. Please hold, I’m going to press it right now. …(button pressing music).
I just tuned on airplane mode, according to the messege that popped up. Pressing it again turns it off.
I’ve done the same with the F6 key at my work desk. Someone in their infinite wisdom decided that the F6 key should be the disconnect key for our clinical systems. As I have some of the same software installed (I support that system), I all to often was hitting the F6 key when trying to hit F5 to refresh a page.
As for keys I never use;
Insert
~`
Scroll Lock
PrtScn/SysRq (I use a screen capture application for screen shots)
Pause/Break
Some of the F keys.
I have, at some point, used every key on every keyboard I’ve ever owned - mostly because I’m the kind of person who cannot resist the “I wonder what this button does?” impulse. It makes me a great software tester, though! I can break things in ways many programmers never dreamed of…
I use every key all the time. Every function key has an assigned function in my text editor. The mathematical formatter tex uses {}_^ extensively; my diagram maker uses `;<>as being the least likely to come up in math expressions (but there is a way to deal with it if they do). The scroll lock would be used, if I had one, to keep the editor focused on the middle line of the display and insert, if this Surface had one, would be used to toggle between overstrike (which I use occasionally) and insert. Indeed, I use them all and could us more.
