With the “small” Mac keyboard, how to simulate a HOME, END, and PageUp, PageDown key

finderituneskeyboard

My desk is a little too narrow for the long type of Apple keyboard — the one that has the keypad and the Home ↖, End ↘, Page Up ⇞, Page Down ⇟ keys… (it will take up the space for the mouse).

So if the small (wireless) keyboard is used, is there a way to simulate these keys: Home ↖, End ↘, Page Up ⇞, Page Down ⇟? (Home ↖ takes a user to beginning of page, End ↘ takes the user to end of page).

In some apps like Chrome and Safari, Command ⌘ + Up ↑ is like Home ↖, and Command ⌘ + ↓ Down is like End ↘. Fn + Up ↑ is like Page Up ⇞, Fn + ↓ Down is like Page Down ⇟, but it won't work in some apps such as in Finder (File Manager) and iTunes, where both of them will only do PageUp and PageDown simulation but not Home ↖ orEnd ↘ simulation.

I have this keyboard:
Apple keyboard
Not this keyboard (which has the dedicated Home ↖, End ↘, Page Up ⇞, and Page Down ⇟ keys):
Apple extended keyboard

Best Answer

The Command+Up/Down keys you mentioned for Chrome and Safari are coincidences. The Fn+Up/Down keys are not. Those key combinations are actually mapped to the Page up/Page down keycodes, so the application thinks you actually pressed those keys. There are similar mappings for Home and End: Fn+Left and Fn+Right, respectively. These Fn+Arrow mappings will work exactly like Page Up/Down and Home/End in any application, unless it somehow is working around the system.

Related Solutions

MacOS – Are there keyboard shortcuts for Home, End, PageDown, and PageUp in OS X

You can do page up/down and home/end on a Macbook keyboard by using the fn and the arrow keys:

fn+↑ is PageUp
fn+↓ is PageDown
fn+← is Home
fn+→ is End

MacOS – Remap “Home” and “End” to beginning and end of line

The default shortcuts for moving to beginning or end of (wrapped) lines are ⌘← and ⌘→. ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ or ⌃A and ⌃E move to the beginning or end of unwrapped lines (or paragraphs). ⌥← and ⌥→ move backwards/forward by words, and all of these are compatible with holding Shift to select during the corresponding moves.

You could remap home and end by creating ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and saving a property list like this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "\UF729"  = moveToBeginningOfLine:; // home
    "\UF72B"  = moveToEndOfLine:; // end
    "$\UF729" = moveToBeginningOfLineAndModifySelection:; // shift-home
    "$\UF72B" = moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection:; // shift-end
}

Most of the keybindings for editing text in OS X are defined in /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/StandardKeyBinding.dict.

Applying changes requires reopening applications. DefaultKeyBinding.dict is ignored by some old versions of Xcode (works with latest version 6.3.1), Terminal, and many cross-platform applications.

See Cocoa Text System and my website for more information about the customizable keybindings.

Terminal's keybindings can be customized in Preferences > Settings > Keyboard. \033OH moves to the beginning of a line and \033OF to the end of a line.

In Eclipse, key bindings should be modified in Preferences > General > Keys. You need to modify default bindings for commands Line Start and Line End (replace ⌘← by ↖ and ⌘→ by ↘). For selection to work, also modify Select Line Start and Select Line End.

PS: You may need to logout and login again for the ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict change to take effect.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – Are there keyboard shortcuts for Home, End, PageDown, and PageUp in OS X

MacOS – Remap “Home” and “End” to beginning and end of line

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