I recently created a new simple software tool that lets you send the F13-F24 keys by clicking a button in the app's GUI which is probably easier than using Power Automate like I showed in the video. It can be found here: github.com/ThioJoe/F-Key-Sender
Hey Thio! Do you know of any alternatives keys that are widely recognized? Alot of games that I would really like to use f13 don't support f13-24! (I replaced caps lock w/ f13) Thanks :)
Fun fact for today’s thumbnail: I couldn’t find any good close-ups of the extra function keys, so I had to download a blender model of a keyboard, extend it and duplicate the F-keys row, change the numbers, then do lighting. And that was all before photoshopping the text/graphics together. Took like 4 hours because I forgot everything from the blender donut tutorial I did a year ago
You needed to search for "IBM 122 key terminal keyboard" That's the keyboard that has the F13 - F24 keys. I don't know that any actual PC keyboards were made with 24 function keys, but I'm pretty sure these terminal keyboards would work on really old PCs with the large DIN (Pre-PS/2) style keyboard connector.
A company I worked for had an old program from the 80s/90s that required the use of F13-F24 keys for certain key functions including navigation and saving information. They were entered by holding down the shift-key and pressing an existing function key. I was brought on to help migrate the company to a more modern product lifecycle management system. Unfortunately, by the time I was furloughed a few years later they had yet to fully retire the old system.
Exactly, old Cobol/Pascal/Basic programs used those keys for many things since mice didn't exist back then, or weren't widely supported. My dad still programs in BASIC with those keys all the time.
That old software is still being supported. Likely running applications on IBM I which natively supports F13-24. IBM just doesn't change how they do things which is why it would appear like it's ancient software.
I work somewhere where we use terminal software and they have those F keys where we have to use the shift key, is it possible the software was made in the 90s? 😟
@@mykale I'm not sure when it was made, but it was a text only interface. I think it was accessed via an emulator or wrapper program that connected the user to the server that ran the program. It reminds me of how I remotely connected with the Linux machines at college for compiling code.
I've used these with AutoHotkey for years. Also, mapping controllers, virtual controllers, mouse-keyboard combos, and voice command scripts. Any two systems that have difficulty sending or receiving input can use these keys as the intermediary.
I use them with AutoHotkey too, it really helps to have keys not on my keyboard for activating custom keyboard shortcuts with my tilt wheel, or a combination of mouse buttons.
Yep. I use AHK to rebind caps lock to f23, which is my screenshot button. Free extra key, and on the off-chance I need to use caps-lock I use alt + caps lock.
Keys F13 - F24 are standard for terminals connected to the IBM mainframe. They were used for programs control, as there was no mouse or similar input devices. Software terminal emulators for PC use these keys too, F13 = Shift + F1 etc.
Exactly, I still use them today, as they're legacy applications that may still need them. While I tend to use Apps moved from a DEC VT220 layout the principle is the same. I sometimes plug in an Apple keyboard just for convenience. However I would like to get my hand on a good VT100 keyboard as it would make the software key presses make more sense. Such as F15 being labeled Help
We use the IBM PC 5250 emulator at work to connect to an AS400 mainframe. This green screen supports 24 F keys as well. To use the keys of F13-F24 you hold shift and pressing the respective F1-F12 key. Or alternatively get an old school IBM keyboard with all 24 physical keys :)
You mean Client Access? Used that for many years as an AS400 developer. Yeah you'll need a lot of function keys for those ugly green screen apps. I kinda miss the 3197 terminals
Same deal, at work we sometimes have to access our old ERP (MAPICS) that runs on IBM AS400 and uses those extra function keys :p reminds me of those old terminals we had at the library when i was a kid
Yes, because of using F1 - F24 almost every day, I was wondering about this Video. But it seems using the F keys is more like an exception for most users 😂
I use F14 for PrtSc, I used to use Fraps which supports PrtSc, but after move to DX12 and Valkun, I'll need something else, I ended up with OBS as it's the only working one on multi-monitor, but it doesn't support PrtSc like many other tools I tried. After searching online I found the solution of swapped PrtSc and F14 with AutoHotKey, then assign F14 for screenshot, and it works great. It actually amazed me how many programs, even those are purposed for screenshot doesn't support PrtSc key and says it's a witchcraft key of some sort, but some others deal with it without issue.... maybe a video for that?
I don't know why, but I find this weird. I've rarely seen a keyboard without a PrtScn key. Mine even has an extra button for sleep mode but removes the ScrLck key.
Greenshot my guy, I don't know that it supports F14 but it's a way better screen capture tool than default PrtSc including as you may have guessed, hotkeys of which you have multiple keys for capture full screen/window/region/last region and a few save options.
Print Screen has to be a hack. Nobody wants to talk about how it works. I suspect it always interrupts the CPU. Any attempt to google how it works just results in "how to use" and nothing about how it works. The key is very effective at creating controlled lag in online games and is basically a free built in cheat for many online games.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 yB default in Windows it captures full screen to clipboard but there's included software called Snipping Tool which can be configured as an alternative.
For those with a UK keyboard; that AltGr key is really useful for accented characters like áéíóú. But also for those extra F keys depending on the manufacturer...
I prefer setting my keyboard layout to US International with dead keys, that way you can type 'e to get é, ^a to get â, "i to get ï, etc. Or if you want just the ', or ", etc, follow it with a space.
@@Blueyzachary It'll certainly be something to adjust to. I've done it this way ever since Windows 3.1 so to me it feels perfectly natural and I wouldn't have it any other way. But I suppose that sentiment is equally valid for someone who's used to doing it a different way :)
On Linux you have the Compose key, which gives you access to dozens, hundreds of extra characters via mnemonic sequences. Like compose-lessthan-quote for opening quote “ and compose-greaterthan-quote for closing quote ”.
I've done both of these years ago and it's great. I assigned F13-F24 for the extra keys on a fancy mouse and also assigned them to a custom-made HID input-device/keyboard/"stream-deck" thing I built with an Arduino. Then I used AutoHotkey to allow me to assign them to actions. There are other keyboard scancodes and virtual-keycodes that are generally unused that can be used as well. You could theoretically create an input device with an extra ~100 keys on top of the ~100 on a regular keyboard. Don't forget that you can use modifier keys like Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Win with them for THOUSANDS of combinations. 😉 2:30 Years ago, I wrote an AHK program to create dozens of hotkeys to allow me to do pretty much anything and everything I want. Then I wrote a dedicated AHK program to create THOUSANDS of hotkeys to all me to input all kinds of Unicode characters and emojis and stuff. The biggest trick was to implement chording. 2:57 Yeah, pressing a key to assign it is tricky. That's why I wrote a simple AHK script to send the scancode when I press a normal keyboard key. 😉 Easy peasy. 6:17 VK_F13…VK_F24 … VK_OEM_4, VK_PROCESSKEY, VK_ZOOM, VK_EXSEL, VK_KANJI, VK_NONCONVERT… I think the last time I saw a keyboard with F13-F24 was an IBM keyboard from a PS/1 or PS/2, _many_ years ago. 🤔
Unicomp, Inc. still makes those great keyboards, they are listed as PC-122 on their web page and they are based on very old mechanical IBM models but with a modern USB connection instead of the ancient AT or PS2 (I think they also sell keyboards with those connectors).
I used to use some of these keys in an old database system called DOMS. The interface was text-only, but opened in a special window with menu buttons on the top mapped to those function keys which had programmed functions in the database system.
This is REALLY valuable information to me. I'm surprised I haven't heard about it after a ton of googling and searching on Reddit (before they made API changes). I had the same exact problem with a mouse and ended up using things like numpad home, end and + - which can get annoying.
glad you covered this. every time i have someone ask me to build them a foot pedal or specialize button set up they are always confused when i mention f13-f24 witch is odd as some of the people were teens when the old keyboards contained them as a dedicated row. that being said they are the best for single key with vary rarely in a blue moon does somthing use them other then editing software as you can still get specialized keyboards for a work software.
I knew! I bought a macropad and assigned all its keys to the F13-F24 keys so I had dedicated keys for them; which came as useful as I can quickly convert them back to whatever I need with AutoHotKey, which is already pretty flexible.
in my laptop's Bios, I can choose whether a function key sends the Fn or the volume/brightness action. Fn+key does the other thing. Setting it to "function keys" was one of the first things I did!
Oddly enough, I knew about these before I watched the video. I worked in a government department where some of our core software was programmed in about 1988. The way to navigate through the screens was by typing in a dialogue number, or by pressing combos such as Shift+F4 to mimic F16.
@@Liggliluff no good reason. It's just the one I have set up. I think I avoided lower numbers in case any apps still used them for some weird legacy reasons (apparently quite a few things have weird default behaviors for F13), so F19 seemed like a good place to start.
Using F13-F24 as push switches, and toggle switches (which would hold down their respective key when enabled) for the keys mentioned below, we could make a total of 12288 key combinations... assuming we could make such long combinations. LShift,RShift, LCtrl,RCtrl, LAlt,RAlt, CapsLock, Meta, Menu, Fn.
I remember those function keys well. Before the mouse was a thing, productivity software used every possible key combination as shortcuts. You could buy keyboard overlays to help you remember which keys did what. That was especially helpful for your rarely-used functions. Some days when I'm frustrated trying to find something on a ribbon or buried deep in a menu, I'll fondly remember when WordPerfect and Lotus 123 were state of the art.
I worked in retail and our f13 to f24 keys were not even enough. Our product lookup had to be split logically so that you could use one set of F-keys on screen-A, and a different set of functions on the same F-keys on screen-B.
I had actually been doing this for my Logitech G600 12-button mouse for a while. Something I found out though - Minecraft only reads up to F15 for some reason, as was the case for Skyrim. I think it has to do with some input libraries that are commonly used in development.
Great video! Here in linux-land key symbols go up to F35, and creating that magic keypress happens with "xdotool key F35". As it happens, the keystrokes making this very sentence are being sent from my laptop to my workstation thru ssh and a bash script that uses xdotool to convey input events :) ... using the mouse via the keyboard is pretty annoying though, as it reveals a lot of QUITE shoddy gui design down to the pixel. And what happens when you suddenly press the left arrow key 1500 times to rewind a browser video player might surprise the crap out of it >_
As a matter of fact I did know about them, and SDL and GTK both define the keys, though you have to make sure to use SDL 2 as 1 only went up to F15. I don't know if you do any programming, but you can use both libraries on Windows too.
Kind of reminds me of my old Northgate OmniKey Ultra Keyboard. It had the F1-F12 keys on the left side of the keyboard. At the top where you'd usually find the function keys was the special function keys SF1-SF12 that you could assign macros to. If I remember correctly, the macros were stored on the keyboard itself so it didn't need extra software to use them.
I remember seeing those key a very long time ago on a very yellowed factory grade keyboard. Unfortunatly I can't remember what that keyboard was for but your video reminded me of that childhood memory. Also who remembers cardboard overlay around the F-keys to remember the shortcuts in DOS wordperfect?
i've done research multiple times trying to find how to unlock those extra F keys for macros before, and could never get it working. Thanks a ton for the info!
I wish FFXIV recognized F13-24 I have one of those MMO mice with 12 buttons, and they are assigned to Numpad, but you cant use Shift + Numpad, otherwise it gives you navigation buttons like Page Up. It also be handy ro use the numpad to quick pull up various menus in an organized manner rather then random keys like C, M or L
Aye, I'm a left handed mouse user and in most games have to remap WASD and surrounding to numpad, you can only use the CTrl and Alt modifiers with numpad as you say because the shift key toggles numlock status whilst pressed.
I know a use of these keys. There is a program called Caffeine that uses F15 keypresses to prevent your system from going into sleep or suspend mode, which is easy if you are busy on your pc but need to walk away at moments. And there are other comparable tools. Even the PowerToys application that you mentioned has a Caffeine like mode, called Awake. Although I am not sure if that one uses the F15 keypress or does it in another way by default.
PowerToys Awake uses SetThreadExecutionState to tell the system that it shouldn't go to sleep. Also media players can use it to prevent the system from going to sleep or turning off the display while playing. You can check what programs are blocking system suspension by typing "powercfg /requests" in Command Prompt with admin privilege.
I have been using these for media controls on the keyboards which dont have one. It comes in handy for volume mutee, up, and down. Thanks for covering this!
IBM created PF keys for mainframe terminals that did not have a graphical user interface, nor mouse. PF stands for Program Function. Some of these keys were reserved for functions like help. The rest of PF keys were available for a programmer to assign functions for the application running. This meant PF key functions were different from one application to another. The IBM 3270 originally had 12 PF keys which was enough, because most programs didn't use them at all. My favorite was IBM ISPF which was program editor editor that used IBM 3270 terminals to interact with mainframe where the processing was done. While a big advance at the time, ISPF had limited functionality because of the lack of computer power and the high cost of the terminals which did very little work beyond display and keyboard input. The PF keys increased as the need for more occurred. When the IBM 3290 gas plasma display was introduced it could display multiple 3270 terminal images and PF13 and upwards were used to select the virtual terminal . These were very expensive devices and usually only used by systems programmers who could watch what was going on the mainframes while still having another virtual terminal to do other things. This is like having multiple windows in in a GUI but with fixed window sizes and locations on the screen. No mouse making selection dependent on PF keys. BTW these terminals were had beautiful displays. Each session or window had to have its own connection (not physically seperate) to the terminal controller, and again, almost all real work was done by the Mainframe. Where I worked we replaced the IBM 3290 with PS/2 personal computers. Because of local processing capability these were in fact superior tools.
no way ,i was just building my new 65 keyboard and trying to figure out a way to use micropads dealing all this shortcut problems and it is my favorite youtuber uploads relatable video !!!
I used to assign the F13 - F16 keys on my mouse for the macro buttons but unfortunately I ran into many games that would not recognize these as valid keys. a compromise for my situation was Pgup, Pgdw, Num - and End keys these have been the most universally accepted keys by programs and have yet to encounter an issue
A good way to still retain usage of F13+, but still get working macro buttons for games that don't support F13+, is to use a key remapper. I use Key Manager by ATNSOFT, but autohotkey should work as well. I find Key Manager a lot easier to set up and use than autohotkey, and it can also be used to run programs on command. e.g. I have the ability to run a program that increments or decrements the scroll amount of the mouse. Anyway, it also has the ability to restrict keystrokes to certain programs, so you can pretty much get around any game/app limitation.
Ooh, I never knew GHub had that drag and drop functionality you mentioned. I was using F13-F17 for 5 programmable keys on my keyboard, but I had a hard time figuring out a different way to get them set up. The power automate thing you mentioned sounds very useful too. I might be able to use it to rebind an extra button on my mouse.
Had set up a num-pad to run scripts and hot keys and with the use of joytokey I used the other 'F' keys quite a bit to set it up. Its very nice to have a single key to press that is known to not be used.
I use Power Toys, and I used it to reprogram my custom key from calculator to a sound switching toggle (which changes the sound output from laptop to headphones and vice versa, using SoundSwitch). I also used it to remap my 'prt scr' button to the new Windows screenshot tool (Win + Shift + S).
I only learned about the additional Function keys not to long ago and it blew my mind. But I love your idea of creating macros that trigger them so you can use them in other programs. Also, a potentially easier method of assigning hidden keys when a physical keystroke is required is to just assign that hidden key to a temporary key and then just press that temporary key when it's listening for a keystroke. In other words, set your "Mouse 5" button to be F13, then when it asks you to press a key, just click your "Mouse 5" button and it should act like you pressed F13. Then just revert your "Mouse 5" button when you're finished.
I use f15 to f17 mapped to moba mouse macros to navigate 3D programs because the same pan, zoom and orbit functions for the viewports are drastically different. I then use AHK script to map these functions to their macros for each program. Saves me having to create individual profiles in the mouse software for each program.
I used it in a small batch script on my work notebook. It clicked F13 every 5 minutes to prevent idle/logout and MS Teams status changes. Doesn't prevent you from working normally since no program uses it
Recently I saw a laptop for sale on eBay. I kind of considered buying it, but then noticed the keyboard layout -- I think it was Hungarian. The oddity for me was that the 0 key wasn't on the right side of 9 as in most keyboards, but on the left side of 1 🤯. Physically the keyboard had the same number of keys arranged the same way as in Swedish/Finnish keyboards, so after switching the layout in Windows' settings it should work fully normally for me, but I think just _seeing_ that thing daily would just F my brain. 😅
I use a Logitech G915 and I also use a lot of Professional Applications that could benefit from this (or rather I could benefit from this). I find the "G Keys" an indespensible set of keys as part of my "tool box" of shortcuts and modifier keys as well as Macros. Cheers! Stay Healthy and Stay Sane!
I'm only about 30 seconds into your video and want to volunteer that I've mapped said keys to the macro keys on my Logitech G815, and then bound them to things like Discord Mute/Deafen, the Steam and Discord overlays, and saving the last minute of gameplay through software I use. Honestly nice to not have to worry about those interfering with stuff like game controls, like trying to type ~ or accidentally pushing Shift + Tab in a game.
Yup. I knew about these and use them with my Corsair K95's 18 G-Keys. I use the F13-F24 + 6 more Intl keys to map the remaining 6 G-Keys. I then use this in a combination of AutoHotkey to run various scripts and macros and AutoHotkey can register those keys and even allow for modifiers, such as Shift-F13, Alt-Shift--F16, Alt-Win-F24, etc. ... yes. I run lots of Autohotkey scripts. Thio, you did give me an idea on how to map multiple modifier keys to potentially work with Foobar2000 that only natively allows a single modifier key. Thanks for this video.
Autohotkey can detect the focussed application, so you can change the key stroke sent based on the application receiving them. That allows for specific adjustments if needed.
I think I'm going to map some of the unused keys on my old Internet Navigator Keyboard that I've had since who-knows-when to take the place of some of the common key combinations used in Visual Studio 2022
I had never heard about that. Almost 30 years using computers and that's the first I hear about those. BUT, that explain why some header files have macros for F13 and up, but I always assumed it was some "reserved for future use" case 😅
Some IBM mainframe terminals had the F13 through F24 keys, and so keyboards for versions of the IBM PC that were connected to mainframes had these extra keys. However, these 133-key keyboards are different from the 101-key keyboard in other ways; the codes for the F1 through F10 keys are different, for starters.
I used to use them to activate desktop shortcuts. When doing this, Windows requires the Ctrl+Alt+... modifier, which makes it annoying to press... except for the F keys. So I remapped one of my unused physical keys to F24 (using SharpKeys), and it all worked. Fun fact: while the shortcut properties dialog _does_ recognise the F13-F24 keys, but can't display them -- they show up as an empty space.
I've known them for years. If you plan to make your own macropad, but want to avoid conflicting things like Shift+ FXX (that way, if you are holding shift when doing a macro, you don't trigger a preexisting one), remember you can do F24+F(1-23). This SUPER reduces the likely hood of triggering something in error, and gives you a large scope of keys to work with. You can think of it as a form of layering, and you should get 12 combos with just F20-F24 alone. Also, other languages exist, but your results may vary with those kinds of keys.
Nice to know I'm not the only one that uses these. It's a great thing to have my 5 mouse buttons bindes to F13 - F15, so I can bind something in a game to mouse without taking up keys on keyboard.
I have a Cherry LPOS keyboard that has the F1-F12 keys, plus like 24 remappable keys. This'll make that great for the garage as a 3D printer/CNC control keyboard. Now I can have stuff like home and jog controls right there instead of in a menu.
I've had the software from the place I use to work at able to recognize up to F36. F13-F24 were accessed through Shift+F1-F12 (basically Shift=Fkey+12) and F25-F36 were Ctrl+F1-F12. Maybe that last set was Alt instead of Ctrl, it's been almost 4 years and I very rarely used those ones. Up to F24 was very common though.
Used F13 - F24 a lot with programing tools in the dark ages before mice. Somehow I found a template that fit on the F1 - F12 keys with the corresponding F13 - F24 keys written above. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven because math was no longer required to figure out which upper case function key was which. I now use a couple of Logitech g series keyboards because I wanted macros that weren't program dependent. Nice stroll through the past!
Third-party companies are still producing keyboards with F13-F24 keys. Not many from what I could find online, but they're out there if you search for them. By the way, here's a fun fact for you: Some computers manufactured by Wang Laboratories in the 1970s-1980s had F25-F32! The way those keyboards worked, there were F1-F16 keys that doubled as F17-F32 keys. I never owned one of these computers myself, but I've seen pictures of them online. I assume there was a modifier key that you'd have to either press or hold down to activate F17-F32.
I think I would rather modify the keyboard's firmware to send the desired keycode, rather than tell Windows to treat the keycode for (say) "increase brightness" as if it were F13. But obviously if you're stuck with a keyboard with non-open firmware, these are useful alternatives :-)
I do have an Apple Aluminium Keyboard from around 2010. But I think beyond F15 they're not mapped to anything I ever used. I think WoW used the F13 to 15 for something a while ago.
I never really heard about them. They must be a 70s thing. Function keys weren't keyboard shortcuts back in the day. They were keyboard commands. It had to do with the limitations of early command line computing. People really don't need the function keys as they were originally intended. These days, it probably wouldn't hurt anything to reassign them for your specific needs. I personally don't use them, and I don't think most people bother with them. Certain keys like Print Screen were a pain for me in the early 2000s back when everyone needed printers. I occasionally by accident would press the key which would print the screen. Even in the early 2000s, you didn't just want to waste good paper and ink like that. The Pause/Break key is good for computer programming although I never really got into GUI programming. That key's not even on my compact keyboard.
Instead of a mouse jiggler, I know of a powershell command that just presses F13 in a background powershell process every few minutes. Most PCs have powershell and its not unusual to see it running. Its a single line of text so its easy to code in, and in general, F13 is an innocuous key that doesn't actually do anything. Pretty ingenious, keeps your laptop from going to sleep at inopportune times. Just look up in your favorite search engine 'powershell mouse jiggler f13'
As a generalisation… if you remember F13-F24, you are probably old, like me. For a long time, I thought it was weird that they'd chopped off half of the function keys. Some of my old DOS programs used to make use of them; once I moved to the dark side and embraced the WIMP though, I put aside such things. 😆
I actually use Corsair's iCue software to map F13 - F24 directly to my F-keys on a separate profile for those cases when I need to "press" those keys specifically. iCue paired with AutoHotkey on Windows has made my keyboard quite flexible :)
as someone with magic keyboard on windows just for that extra F13 -> F19 key I understand so well it's "usefulness" :D This keyboard and powertoys is something I found some months ago and it's such a time saver (Who care about LED or big click click on keyboard touch when you actually have features :) )
Have never understood the F keys Joe except for getting into the BIOS so this video just clears up some of the secrets of them. But having said that using those keys seems to be quite convoluted and difficult to understand so I just don't use them much at all.
I remember in the early nineties I met these function keys. I think it was Siemens who had a software program for a municipality where all 24 where used, remember, it was the DOS era, and they also assigned the ALT, Shift and Ctrl keys to it. So, a total of about a hundred options where there. They had a twenty page manual only to describe these functions. I personally did not work with it but I was told it was a nightmare.
Yep, knew these for a while, but noticed that the main use case I had for them was a bust. As you mention, programs won't always recognise them. Sadly your given example of video games is actually the most common type of program that does not allow the use of F13-F24. It's a very hit and miss type of scenario. For example as I recall none of the recent Call of Duty titles supported them so it's not like only old games don't.
Scroll Lock should be implemented more. When activated, don't jump or scroll back when something changed in the window off screen. The only application I found this correctly implemented was in 199x, Cakewalk. A 'daw' which didn't jump back to the 'off screen' play position of a track when you were editing totally somewhere else in the track.
I didn't know about the F13-F24 keys, so this was a good video. I also know about PowerToys and Power Automate, I almost daily use PowerToys but never used Power Automate. So, could you do a video of how to use Power Automate to its fullest, from small things to really push it to its limit, it would be really interesting to see what things one could use it for.
Apparently, there is a manufacturer of modern 122-key keyboards, Twin Data, they have several models on their website, differing slightly in special key layouts, connectors USB, PS/2, RJ45, AT-Style and they also offer some language variations. I wonder if the F25 to F30 keys found on an NCR 528 and a Cherry G80-0528 keyboard may be used easily the same way, recognized by Windows and apps as the F1 to F24.
Yeah I knew about these, one of the uses I noticed is in apps like Caffeine which uses these "unused" keys to prevent computer to fall asleep (they simulate pressing F15 or some of the higher function keys).
Tom Scott used the f24 key in making his emoji keyboard. The idea is that he plugged in several keyboards to a computer, and stuck little emoji stickers to the keys, and pressing the keys should type the emoji. He ran into an issue where one software package was able to type the emoji, but couldn't distinguish between the keyboards, and another software package could distinguish between the keyboards, but couldn't type emoji. He used the second software to get the key information, save it to a file, then pressed f24 to let the other software know that it should read the file and type the emoji.
I got to know about F13-F24 from C# like 5 years ago... I saw, when trying to add a hook to F11, a list of F keys from 10 to 19... I also preceded the code with 2 and saw F2, F20, F21, ... F24 in the auto complete menu.
I know about them, my Asus laptop use F24 as the disable touchpad shortcut. Well, not exactly, pressing the disable touchpad in Keyboard manager recognize it as F24, but mapping another key to F24 doesn't disable the touchpad. (OEM like Asus REALLY love to use weird ways to make their shortcuts works while preventing you from changing them to more useful keys or shortcuts)
This might actually prove very useful for me, since my Unicomp PC122 does have dedicated F13 to F24 keys, but they're mapped to shift-F1 to shift-F12, which many programs still recognise as F1-F12. Always wondered if I could remap them genuinely to F13-F24
I recently created a new simple software tool that lets you send the F13-F24 keys by clicking a button in the app's GUI which is probably easier than using Power Automate like I showed in the video. It can be found here: github.com/ThioJoe/F-Key-Sender
you rock
Hey Thio! Do you know of any alternatives keys that are widely recognized? Alot of games that I would really like to use f13 don't support f13-24! (I replaced caps lock w/ f13) Thanks :)
As a power user, getting 12 more keys is like a dream come true. Thanks Thio!
sorry for my ignorance but what is power?
@@francesquare8708 someone who uses advanced features which aren't used by the average user
@@francesquare8708energy spent per unit time.
@@aytraf you could argue that power also refers to potential energy.
@@francesquare8708 the thing that's over 9000!
Fun fact for today’s thumbnail: I couldn’t find any good close-ups of the extra function keys, so I had to download a blender model of a keyboard, extend it and duplicate the F-keys row, change the numbers, then do lighting. And that was all before photoshopping the text/graphics together.
Took like 4 hours because I forgot everything from the blender donut tutorial I did a year ago
Some games recognize the hidden F keys but they display as empty visually in the key binding settings because they lack a sprite.
Some big old IBM Model M keyboards had them. Ones intended for terminal use I guess, but they had ones that were just plain AT PC keyboards.
I have a question for you, Sir. Would an apple keyboard be compatible with a windows desktop computer?
@@neopagan1976 kinda yes, the key mapping will be the one from windows, not the keyboard (for special characters); and command the win key
You needed to search for "IBM 122 key terminal keyboard" That's the keyboard that has the F13 - F24 keys. I don't know that any actual PC keyboards were made with 24 function keys, but I'm pretty sure these terminal keyboards would work on really old PCs with the large DIN (Pre-PS/2) style keyboard connector.
A company I worked for had an old program from the 80s/90s that required the use of F13-F24 keys for certain key functions including navigation and saving information. They were entered by holding down the shift-key and pressing an existing function key. I was brought on to help migrate the company to a more modern product lifecycle management system. Unfortunately, by the time I was furloughed a few years later they had yet to fully retire the old system.
there are keyboards from that era that had all the function keys in 2 rows, for example the IBM Model M 122
Exactly, old Cobol/Pascal/Basic programs used those keys for many things since mice didn't exist back then, or weren't widely supported.
My dad still programs in BASIC with those keys all the time.
That old software is still being supported. Likely running applications on IBM I which natively supports F13-24. IBM just doesn't change how they do things which is why it would appear like it's ancient software.
I work somewhere where we use terminal software and they have those F keys where we have to use the shift key, is it possible the software was made in the 90s? 😟
@@mykale I'm not sure when it was made, but it was a text only interface. I think it was accessed via an emulator or wrapper program that connected the user to the server that ran the program. It reminds me of how I remotely connected with the Linux machines at college for compiling code.
I've used these with AutoHotkey for years. Also, mapping controllers, virtual controllers, mouse-keyboard combos, and voice command scripts. Any two systems that have difficulty sending or receiving input can use these keys as the intermediary.
I use them with AutoHotkey too, it really helps to have keys not on my keyboard for activating custom keyboard shortcuts with my tilt wheel, or a combination of mouse buttons.
I also use AutoHotkey, mainly for gaming macros (but other stuff too). This F12+ key maybe handy with AHK.
Yep. I use AHK to rebind caps lock to f23, which is my screenshot button. Free extra key, and on the off-chance I need to use caps-lock I use alt + caps lock.
@@compactcowwhy not bind your screenshot to Windows Key + PrntScrn, then rebind normal prntscrn to f23
I cant use my script on games, ets2 to be specific. Running the script as admin doesnt work too
Keys F13 - F24 are standard for terminals connected to the IBM mainframe. They were used for programs control, as there was no mouse or similar input devices. Software terminal emulators for PC use these keys too, F13 = Shift + F1 etc.
Exactly, I've been working on IBM mainframes for 6 months and if z/OS console required for example F14 key we pressed SHIFT+F2
Oh, the memories...
Exactly, I still use them today, as they're legacy applications that may still need them. While I tend to use Apps moved from a DEC VT220 layout the principle is the same. I sometimes plug in an Apple keyboard just for convenience. However I would like to get my hand on a good VT100 keyboard as it would make the software key presses make more sense. Such as F15 being labeled Help
so THAT'S why it was the F25 key meme and not F13, interesting!
F25 key meme?
F25 key meme.
@@imnotusingmyrealname4566 I am gonna press the F25 key!
@@Tobim6 *weird noises*
@@not-a-human beep boop F25 key being pressed by me boop zeep
We use the IBM PC 5250 emulator at work to connect to an AS400 mainframe. This green screen supports 24 F keys as well. To use the keys of F13-F24 you hold shift and pressing the respective F1-F12 key. Or alternatively get an old school IBM keyboard with all 24 physical keys :)
You mean Client Access? Used that for many years as an AS400 developer. Yeah you'll need a lot of function keys for those ugly green screen apps. I kinda miss the 3197 terminals
@@shackamaxon512Oh yeah.... Client Access...that is correct!!
Same deal, at work we sometimes have to access our old ERP (MAPICS) that runs on IBM AS400 and uses those extra function keys :p
reminds me of those old terminals we had at the library when i was a kid
Yes, also using today still on the AS400. Very handy!
Yes, because of using F1 - F24 almost every day, I was wondering about this Video. But it seems using the F keys is more like an exception for most users 😂
I use F14 for PrtSc, I used to use Fraps which supports PrtSc, but after move to DX12 and Valkun, I'll need something else, I ended up with OBS as it's the only working one on multi-monitor, but it doesn't support PrtSc like many other tools I tried. After searching online I found the solution of swapped PrtSc and F14 with AutoHotKey, then assign F14 for screenshot, and it works great.
It actually amazed me how many programs, even those are purposed for screenshot doesn't support PrtSc key and says it's a witchcraft key of some sort, but some others deal with it without issue.... maybe a video for that?
I don't know why, but I find this weird. I've rarely seen a keyboard without a PrtScn key.
Mine even has an extra button for sleep mode but removes the ScrLck key.
Greenshot my guy, I don't know that it supports F14 but it's a way better screen capture tool than default PrtSc including as you may have guessed, hotkeys of which you have multiple keys for capture full screen/window/region/last region and a few save options.
Print Screen has to be a hack. Nobody wants to talk about how it works. I suspect it always interrupts the CPU. Any attempt to google how it works just results in "how to use" and nothing about how it works. The key is very effective at creating controlled lag in online games and is basically a free built in cheat for many online games.
On Linux, PrtSc normally launches a screen grabber program.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 yB default in Windows it captures full screen to clipboard but there's included software called Snipping Tool which can be configured as an alternative.
For those with a UK keyboard; that AltGr key is really useful for accented characters like áéíóú.
But also for those extra F keys depending on the manufacturer...
I prefer setting my keyboard layout to US International with dead keys, that way you can type 'e to get é, ^a to get â, "i to get ï, etc. Or if you want just the ', or ", etc, follow it with a space.
@@MicraHakkinenthen it’s difficult to use those characters without adding diacritics
@@Blueyzachary It'll certainly be something to adjust to. I've done it this way ever since Windows 3.1 so to me it feels perfectly natural and I wouldn't have it any other way. But I suppose that sentiment is equally valid for someone who's used to doing it a different way :)
On Linux you have the Compose key, which gives you access to dozens, hundreds of extra characters via mnemonic sequences. Like compose-lessthan-quote for opening quote “ and compose-greaterthan-quote for closing quote ”.
áéíóú
I've done both of these years ago and it's great. I assigned F13-F24 for the extra keys on a fancy mouse and also assigned them to a custom-made HID input-device/keyboard/"stream-deck" thing I built with an Arduino. Then I used AutoHotkey to allow me to assign them to actions. There are other keyboard scancodes and virtual-keycodes that are generally unused that can be used as well. You could theoretically create an input device with an extra ~100 keys on top of the ~100 on a regular keyboard. Don't forget that you can use modifier keys like Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Win with them for THOUSANDS of combinations. 😉
2:30 Years ago, I wrote an AHK program to create dozens of hotkeys to allow me to do pretty much anything and everything I want. Then I wrote a dedicated AHK program to create THOUSANDS of hotkeys to all me to input all kinds of Unicode characters and emojis and stuff. The biggest trick was to implement chording.
2:57 Yeah, pressing a key to assign it is tricky. That's why I wrote a simple AHK script to send the scancode when I press a normal keyboard key. 😉 Easy peasy.
6:17 VK_F13…VK_F24 … VK_OEM_4, VK_PROCESSKEY, VK_ZOOM, VK_EXSEL, VK_KANJI, VK_NONCONVERT…
I think the last time I saw a keyboard with F13-F24 was an IBM keyboard from a PS/1 or PS/2, _many_ years ago. 🤔
This takes the phrase “I’mma hit the F25 key” to a whole new level
Ummm actually there is no F25 Key - 🤓
Unicomp, Inc. still makes those great keyboards, they are listed as PC-122 on their web page and they are based on very old mechanical IBM models but with a modern USB connection instead of the ancient AT or PS2 (I think they also sell keyboards with those connectors).
I used to use some of these keys in an old database system called DOMS. The interface was text-only, but opened in a special window with menu buttons on the top mapped to those function keys which had programmed functions in the database system.
This is REALLY valuable information to me. I'm surprised I haven't heard about it after a ton of googling and searching on Reddit (before they made API changes).
I had the same exact problem with a mouse and ended up using things like numpad home, end and + - which can get annoying.
glad you covered this. every time i have someone ask me to build them a foot pedal or specialize button set up they are always confused when i mention f13-f24 witch is odd as some of the people were teens when the old keyboards contained them as a dedicated row. that being said they are the best for single key with vary rarely in a blue moon does somthing use them other then editing software as you can still get specialized keyboards for a work software.
I knew! I bought a macropad and assigned all its keys to the F13-F24 keys so I had dedicated keys for them; which came as useful as I can quickly convert them back to whatever I need with AutoHotKey, which is already pretty flexible.
in my laptop's Bios, I can choose whether a function key sends the Fn or the volume/brightness action. Fn+key does the other thing. Setting it to "function keys" was one of the first things I did!
Oddly enough, I knew about these before I watched the video. I worked in a government department where some of our core software was programmed in about 1988. The way to navigate through the screens was by typing in a dialogue number, or by pressing combos such as Shift+F4 to mimic F16.
Fun fact: they still appear in PresentationFramework, System.Windows and UWP (while coding, in the virtual keys enums)
As a Mac user, I often use F13-F19 for shortcuts, especially in Photoshop, very handy as like you say most programs don’t assign anything beyond F12.
Remapping NumLock to F19 is amazing for setting up a ton of practical shortcuts!!
I'm curious why specifically F19
@@Liggliluff no good reason. It's just the one I have set up. I think I avoided lower numbers in case any apps still used them for some weird legacy reasons (apparently quite a few things have weird default behaviors for F13), so F19 seemed like a good place to start.
Using F13-F24 as push switches, and toggle switches (which would hold down their respective key when enabled) for the keys mentioned below, we could make a total of 12288 key combinations... assuming we could make such long combinations.
LShift,RShift,
LCtrl,RCtrl,
LAlt,RAlt,
CapsLock,
Meta,
Menu,
Fn.
I remember those function keys well. Before the mouse was a thing, productivity software used every possible key combination as shortcuts. You could buy keyboard overlays to help you remember which keys did what. That was especially helpful for your rarely-used functions.
Some days when I'm frustrated trying to find something on a ribbon or buried deep in a menu, I'll fondly remember when WordPerfect and Lotus 123 were state of the art.
I worked in retail and our f13 to f24 keys were not even enough. Our product lookup had to be split logically so that you could use one set of F-keys on screen-A, and a different set of functions on the same F-keys on screen-B.
F25?
One of the function keys is the same on both screens and is used for toggling between them.
I had actually been doing this for my Logitech G600 12-button mouse for a while. Something I found out though - Minecraft only reads up to F15 for some reason, as was the case for Skyrim. I think it has to do with some input libraries that are commonly used in development.
Sounds like 1 hex character. 0 to F. So F1 would be 0 and F15 F.
If that were the case, it would run 0 => F1 to (15) 0xF => F16. It's still possible that it has something to do with fitting within a 4-bit address.
The F13 - F24 keys also show up on handheld scan guns. (ex: Honeywell CK75) It's not a desktop keyboard, but it is a modern device.
Great video! Here in linux-land key symbols go up to F35, and creating that magic keypress happens with "xdotool key F35". As it happens, the keystrokes making this very sentence are being sent from my laptop to my workstation thru ssh and a bash script that uses xdotool to convey input events :)
... using the mouse via the keyboard is pretty annoying though, as it reveals a lot of QUITE shoddy gui design down to the pixel. And what happens when you suddenly press the left arrow key 1500 times to rewind a browser video player might surprise the crap out of it >_
As a matter of fact I did know about them, and SDL and GTK both define the keys, though you have to make sure to use SDL 2 as 1 only went up to F15. I don't know if you do any programming, but you can use both libraries on Windows too.
Kind of reminds me of my old Northgate OmniKey Ultra Keyboard. It had the F1-F12 keys on the left side of the keyboard. At the top where you'd usually find the function keys was the special function keys SF1-SF12 that you could assign macros to. If I remember correctly, the macros were stored on the keyboard itself so it didn't need extra software to use them.
I remember seeing those key a very long time ago on a very yellowed factory grade keyboard. Unfortunatly I can't remember what that keyboard was for but your video reminded me of that childhood memory. Also who remembers cardboard overlay around the F-keys to remember the shortcuts in DOS wordperfect?
i've done research multiple times trying to find how to unlock those extra F keys for macros before, and could never get it working.
Thanks a ton for the info!
I wish FFXIV recognized F13-24
I have one of those MMO mice with 12 buttons, and they are assigned to Numpad, but you cant use Shift + Numpad, otherwise it gives you navigation buttons like Page Up.
It also be handy ro use the numpad to quick pull up various menus in an organized manner rather then random keys like C, M or L
Aye, I'm a left handed mouse user and in most games have to remap WASD and surrounding to numpad, you can only use the CTrl and Alt modifiers with numpad as you say because the shift key toggles numlock status whilst pressed.
I know a use of these keys. There is a program called Caffeine that uses F15 keypresses to prevent your system from going into sleep or suspend mode, which is easy if you are busy on your pc but need to walk away at moments.
And there are other comparable tools. Even the PowerToys application that you mentioned has a Caffeine like mode, called Awake. Although I am not sure if that one uses the F15 keypress or does it in another way by default.
PowerToys Awake uses SetThreadExecutionState to tell the system that it shouldn't go to sleep. Also media players can use it to prevent the system from going to sleep or turning off the display while playing. You can check what programs are blocking system suspension by typing "powercfg /requests" in Command Prompt with admin privilege.
I first learned the existence of these keys from Tom Scott's video, The Art Of The Bodge. I learned about AutoHotkey there as well!
0:04 That is a 122-key keyboard for an IBM 5250 terminal that is connected to IBM midrange systems, AS/400 and System i.
I have been using these for media controls on the keyboards which dont have one. It comes in handy for volume mutee, up, and down. Thanks for covering this!
IBM created PF keys for mainframe terminals that did not have a graphical user interface, nor mouse. PF stands for Program Function. Some of these keys were reserved for functions like help. The rest of PF keys were available for a programmer to assign functions for the application running. This meant PF key functions were different from one application to another. The IBM 3270 originally had 12 PF keys which was enough, because most programs didn't use them at all. My favorite was IBM ISPF which was program editor editor that used IBM 3270 terminals to interact with mainframe where the processing was done. While a big advance at the time, ISPF had limited functionality because of the lack of computer power and the high cost of the terminals which did very little work beyond display and keyboard input.
The PF keys increased as the need for more occurred. When the IBM 3290 gas plasma display was introduced it could display multiple 3270 terminal images and PF13 and upwards were used to select the virtual terminal . These were very expensive devices and usually only used by systems programmers who could watch what was going on the mainframes while still having another virtual terminal to do other things. This is like having multiple windows in in a GUI but with fixed window sizes and locations on the screen. No mouse making selection dependent on PF keys. BTW these terminals were had beautiful displays. Each session or window had to have its own connection (not physically seperate) to the terminal controller, and again, almost all real work was done by the Mainframe.
Where I worked we replaced the IBM 3290 with PS/2 personal computers. Because of local processing capability these were in fact superior tools.
6:45
How many monitors do you want?
Yes.
no way ,i was just building my new 65 keyboard and trying to figure out a way to use micropads dealing all this shortcut problems and it is my favorite youtuber uploads relatable video !!!
I used to assign the F13 - F16 keys on my mouse for the macro buttons but unfortunately I ran into many games that would not recognize these as valid keys. a compromise for my situation was Pgup, Pgdw, Num - and End keys these have been the most universally accepted keys by programs and have yet to encounter an issue
A good way to still retain usage of F13+, but still get working macro buttons for games that don't support F13+, is to use a key remapper. I use Key Manager by ATNSOFT, but autohotkey should work as well. I find Key Manager a lot easier to set up and use than autohotkey, and it can also be used to run programs on command. e.g. I have the ability to run a program that increments or decrements the scroll amount of the mouse. Anyway, it also has the ability to restrict keystrokes to certain programs, so you can pretty much get around any game/app limitation.
Ooh, I never knew GHub had that drag and drop functionality you mentioned. I was using F13-F17 for 5 programmable keys on my keyboard, but I had a hard time figuring out a different way to get them set up. The power automate thing you mentioned sounds very useful too. I might be able to use it to rebind an extra button on my mouse.
I use the F13-F24 keys on AS400 at work. They are still used for certains OS on the banking world
same here! I'm using it at a gov office though
Had set up a num-pad to run scripts and hot keys and with the use of joytokey I used the other 'F' keys quite a bit to set it up. Its very nice to have a single key to press that is known to not be used.
I use Power Toys, and I used it to reprogram my custom key from calculator to a sound switching toggle (which changes the sound output from laptop to headphones and vice versa, using SoundSwitch).
I also used it to remap my 'prt scr' button to the new Windows screenshot tool (Win + Shift + S).
I only learned about the additional Function keys not to long ago and it blew my mind.
But I love your idea of creating macros that trigger them so you can use them in other programs.
Also, a potentially easier method of assigning hidden keys when a physical keystroke is required is to just assign that hidden key to a temporary key and then just press that temporary key when it's listening for a keystroke. In other words, set your "Mouse 5" button to be F13, then when it asks you to press a key, just click your "Mouse 5" button and it should act like you pressed F13. Then just revert your "Mouse 5" button when you're finished.
I use f15 to f17 mapped to moba mouse macros to navigate 3D programs because the same pan, zoom and orbit functions for the viewports are drastically different. I then use AHK script to map these functions to their macros for each program. Saves me having to create individual profiles in the mouse software for each program.
I used it in a small batch script on my work notebook. It clicked F13 every 5 minutes to prevent idle/logout and MS Teams status changes. Doesn't prevent you from working normally since no program uses it
It’s computing, so there should be a F0 key as first one
Recently I saw a laptop for sale on eBay. I kind of considered buying it, but then noticed the keyboard layout -- I think it was Hungarian. The oddity for me was that the 0 key wasn't on the right side of 9 as in most keyboards, but on the left side of 1 🤯. Physically the keyboard had the same number of keys arranged the same way as in Swedish/Finnish keyboards, so after switching the layout in Windows' settings it should work fully normally for me, but I think just _seeing_ that thing daily would just F my brain. 😅
I use a Logitech G915 and I also use a lot of Professional Applications that could benefit from this (or rather I could benefit from this). I find the "G Keys" an indespensible set of keys as part of my "tool box" of shortcuts and modifier keys as well as Macros. Cheers! Stay Healthy and Stay Sane!
I'm only about 30 seconds into your video and want to volunteer that I've mapped said keys to the macro keys on my Logitech G815, and then bound them to things like Discord Mute/Deafen, the Steam and Discord overlays, and saving the last minute of gameplay through software I use. Honestly nice to not have to worry about those interfering with stuff like game controls, like trying to type ~ or accidentally pushing Shift + Tab in a game.
Yup. I knew about these and use them with my Corsair K95's 18 G-Keys. I use the F13-F24 + 6 more Intl keys to map the remaining 6 G-Keys. I then use this in a combination of AutoHotkey to run various scripts and macros and AutoHotkey can register those keys and even allow for modifiers, such as Shift-F13, Alt-Shift--F16, Alt-Win-F24, etc. ... yes. I run lots of Autohotkey scripts. Thio, you did give me an idea on how to map multiple modifier keys to potentially work with Foobar2000 that only natively allows a single modifier key. Thanks for this video.
Autohotkey can detect the focussed application, so you can change the key stroke sent based on the application receiving them. That allows for specific adjustments if needed.
I think I'm going to map some of the unused keys on my old Internet Navigator Keyboard that I've had since who-knows-when to take the place of some of the common key combinations used in Visual Studio 2022
I had never heard about that. Almost 30 years using computers and that's the first I hear about those. BUT, that explain why some header files have macros for F13 and up, but I always assumed it was some "reserved for future use" case 😅
Some IBM mainframe terminals had the F13 through F24 keys, and so keyboards for versions of the IBM PC that were connected to mainframes had these extra keys. However, these 133-key keyboards are different from the 101-key keyboard in other ways; the codes for the F1 through F10 keys are different, for starters.
I used to use them to activate desktop shortcuts. When doing this, Windows requires the Ctrl+Alt+... modifier, which makes it annoying to press... except for the F keys. So I remapped one of my unused physical keys to F24 (using SharpKeys), and it all worked.
Fun fact: while the shortcut properties dialog _does_ recognise the F13-F24 keys, but can't display them -- they show up as an empty space.
I've known them for years. If you plan to make your own macropad, but want to avoid conflicting things like Shift+ FXX (that way, if you are holding shift when doing a macro, you don't trigger a preexisting one), remember you can do F24+F(1-23). This SUPER reduces the likely hood of triggering something in error, and gives you a large scope of keys to work with. You can think of it as a form of layering, and you should get 12 combos with just F20-F24 alone.
Also, other languages exist, but your results may vary with those kinds of keys.
"I'm gonna hit the f25 key! Get Ready!"
This is very helpful! I will definitely use these hidden keys!
Yes. I do. I worked with this kind of (trimodal) keyboards. We needed this for our sinix terminal (mainframe)
Nice to know I'm not the only one that uses these. It's a great thing to have my 5 mouse buttons bindes to F13 - F15, so I can bind something in a game to mouse without taking up keys on keyboard.
I have a Cherry LPOS keyboard that has the F1-F12 keys, plus like 24 remappable keys. This'll make that great for the garage as a 3D printer/CNC control keyboard. Now I can have stuff like home and jog controls right there instead of in a menu.
A nice explanation video, so now i don't have to individually tell people about it. Thanks!
I've had the software from the place I use to work at able to recognize up to F36. F13-F24 were accessed through Shift+F1-F12 (basically Shift=Fkey+12) and F25-F36 were Ctrl+F1-F12. Maybe that last set was Alt instead of Ctrl, it's been almost 4 years and I very rarely used those ones. Up to F24 was very common though.
Used F13 - F24 a lot with programing tools in the dark ages before mice. Somehow I found a template that fit on the F1 - F12 keys with the corresponding F13 - F24 keys written above. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven because math was no longer required to figure out which upper case function key was which. I now use a couple of Logitech g series keyboards because I wanted macros that weren't program dependent. Nice stroll through the past!
Third-party companies are still producing keyboards with F13-F24 keys. Not many from what I could find online, but they're out there if you search for them.
By the way, here's a fun fact for you: Some computers manufactured by Wang Laboratories in the 1970s-1980s had F25-F32! The way those keyboards worked, there were F1-F16 keys that doubled as F17-F32 keys. I never owned one of these computers myself, but I've seen pictures of them online. I assume there was a modifier key that you'd have to either press or hold down to activate F17-F32.
I think I would rather modify the keyboard's firmware to send the desired keycode, rather than tell Windows to treat the keycode for (say) "increase brightness" as if it were F13.
But obviously if you're stuck with a keyboard with non-open firmware, these are useful alternatives :-)
I do have an Apple Aluminium Keyboard from around 2010. But I think beyond F15 they're not mapped to anything I ever used. I think WoW used the F13 to 15 for something a while ago.
Autohotkey rocks so good for making extra keys, via combos.
I never really heard about them. They must be a 70s thing. Function keys weren't keyboard shortcuts back in the day. They were keyboard commands. It had to do with the limitations of early command line computing. People really don't need the function keys as they were originally intended. These days, it probably wouldn't hurt anything to reassign them for your specific needs. I personally don't use them, and I don't think most people bother with them. Certain keys like Print Screen were a pain for me in the early 2000s back when everyone needed printers. I occasionally by accident would press the key which would print the screen. Even in the early 2000s, you didn't just want to waste good paper and ink like that. The Pause/Break key is good for computer programming although I never really got into GUI programming. That key's not even on my compact keyboard.
5:39 On my keyboard (And most of the keyboards) you can press Fn + ESC to swap between F1 - F12 (F24) and volume up, volume down, etc
Instead of a mouse jiggler, I know of a powershell command that just presses F13 in a background powershell process every few minutes. Most PCs have powershell and its not unusual to see it running. Its a single line of text so its easy to code in, and in general, F13 is an innocuous key that doesn't actually do anything. Pretty ingenious, keeps your laptop from going to sleep at inopportune times. Just look up in your favorite search engine 'powershell mouse jiggler f13'
As a generalisation… if you remember F13-F24, you are probably old, like me.
For a long time, I thought it was weird that they'd chopped off half of the function keys. Some of my old DOS programs used to make use of them; once I moved to the dark side and embraced the WIMP though, I put aside such things. 😆
I actually use Corsair's iCue software to map F13 - F24 directly to my F-keys on a separate profile for those cases when I need to "press" those keys specifically. iCue paired with AutoHotkey on Windows has made my keyboard quite flexible :)
as someone with magic keyboard on windows just for that extra F13 -> F19 key I understand so well it's "usefulness" :D
This keyboard and powertoys is something I found some months ago and it's such a time saver
(Who care about LED or big click click on keyboard touch when you actually have features :) )
Have never understood the F keys Joe except for getting into the BIOS so this video just clears up some of the secrets of them. But having said that using those keys seems to be quite convoluted and difficult to understand so I just don't use them much at all.
I remember in the early nineties I met these function keys.
I think it was Siemens who had a software program for a municipality where all 24 where used, remember, it was the DOS era, and they also assigned the ALT, Shift and Ctrl keys to it.
So, a total of about a hundred options where there.
They had a twenty page manual only to describe these functions.
I personally did not work with it but I was told it was a nightmare.
Yep, knew these for a while, but noticed that the main use case I had for them was a bust. As you mention, programs won't always recognise them. Sadly your given example of video games is actually the most common type of program that does not allow the use of F13-F24. It's a very hit and miss type of scenario. For example as I recall none of the recent Call of Duty titles supported them so it's not like only old games don't.
Learned something very new from this video. I may actually try this on my laptop.
Scroll Lock should be implemented more.
When activated, don't jump or scroll back when something changed in the window off screen.
The only application I found this correctly implemented was in 199x, Cakewalk. A 'daw' which didn't jump back to the 'off screen' play position of a track when you were editing totally somewhere else in the track.
I didn't know about the F13-F24 keys, so this was a good video.
I also know about PowerToys and Power Automate, I almost daily use PowerToys but never used Power Automate.
So, could you do a video of how to use Power Automate to its fullest, from small things to really push it to its limit, it would be really interesting to see what things one could use it for.
Apparently, there is a manufacturer of modern 122-key keyboards, Twin Data, they have several models on their website, differing slightly in special key layouts, connectors USB, PS/2, RJ45, AT-Style and they also offer some language variations. I wonder if the F25 to F30 keys found on an NCR 528 and a Cherry G80-0528 keyboard may be used easily the same way, recognized by Windows and apps as the F1 to F24.
I use alot of key binds, having more keys that aren't pre-tied to things is useful to me!
This was the video ive been searching for years. Finding unused keys for soundpad was hard
IBM still uses F1-F24 keyboards primarily for mainframe and midrange terminal emulation. AS/400 aka iSeries uses F13-24 extensively.
This show is very interesting and it goes right up my alley. I am interested in learning new things about keyboards since I am an avid typist.
Thank you that you told me about powertoys have function to reassign key, since i have a broken "l" key
Yeah I knew about these, one of the uses I noticed is in apps like Caffeine which uses these "unused" keys to prevent computer to fall asleep (they simulate pressing F15 or some of the higher function keys).
I have a corsair with 12 extra buttons on the side, all numbered 1-12. I will be assigning them all to Fn+12 thank you
0:55 just pulled up my exact setup, wow
My first thought when I hear these keys mentioned is Tom Scott's emoji keyboard, where he used the F24 key as part of the bodge to make it work
Tom Scott used the f24 key in making his emoji keyboard. The idea is that he plugged in several keyboards to a computer, and stuck little emoji stickers to the keys, and pressing the keys should type the emoji. He ran into an issue where one software package was able to type the emoji, but couldn't distinguish between the keyboards, and another software package could distinguish between the keyboards, but couldn't type emoji. He used the second software to get the key information, save it to a file, then pressed f24 to let the other software know that it should read the file and type the emoji.
I got to know about F13-F24 from C# like 5 years ago... I saw, when trying to add a hook to F11, a list of F keys from 10 to 19... I also preceded the code with 2 and saw F2, F20, F21, ... F24 in the auto complete menu.
On my mac, having the F13-F19 keys is so useful for stuff like 3d software, OBS, and games, so i can make more hotkeys without conflicts
I know about them, my Asus laptop use F24 as the disable touchpad shortcut. Well, not exactly, pressing the disable touchpad in Keyboard manager recognize it as F24, but mapping another key to F24 doesn't disable the touchpad.
(OEM like Asus REALLY love to use weird ways to make their shortcuts works while preventing you from changing them to more useful keys or shortcuts)
The only safe "never used for anything" key I know of is Scroll Lock.
Makes it perfect to trigger a KVM switch.
You are not using Excel, are you?
You have breathed new life into my razer naga, thanks!!
Some things i didn't know before. Some keyboards i used had icon on them, and i didn't understand what they do... now i understand. 😮
Speaking of G HUB, you can use the G-Shift key to increment all your function keys by 12 (F1 is F13, F2 is F14, and so on).
This might actually prove very useful for me, since my Unicomp PC122 does have dedicated F13 to F24 keys, but they're mapped to shift-F1 to shift-F12, which many programs still recognise as F1-F12. Always wondered if I could remap them genuinely to F13-F24
I use autohotkey for a long time to remap + do automated thing. Its more customizable. You can do whatever you want with it