My family often requests my attention while I'm listening to a video or music. Having the volume and pause/play actions mapped are very important to me so I can give them the attention they deserve. Looking at my apple keyboard, there are F16-F19 keys that are completely unused in my Windows/Linux environment. Therefore I mapped them to the following actions:
- F16 - Volume Down
- F17 - Volume Up
- F18 - Volume Mute
- F19 - Media Play/Pause
The idea behind F19 is that button will be the most in demand, and since F19 is in the most upper right corner, it'll be the easiest to locate quickly. The mapping was done with an application called Autohotkeys. Its a simple Windows application that has a typical install.exe and a next next next install process.
One Autohotkeys is installed, you'll need to create a script. Here is the one that I use for the above mapping to take effect.:
f16::Send {Volume_Down}
return
f17::Send {Volume_Up}
return
f18::Send {Volume_Mute}
return
f19::Send {Media_Play_Pause}
return
Super simple, super useful. And it works.
One last note ... apparently there are keyboard that have function keys up to F24?