Disappearing Expose/Dashboard Shortcuts

Intel Mac Mini Solo running 10.4.10
I have a recurring problem of losing my keyboard shortcuts in my Dashboard/Expose System Preferences. I'm not sure yet what sets it off, but I don't have to restart or shut down to make it happen. It also affects my mouse settings which means I have to occasionally reset both the Dashboard/Expose AND my mouse button preferences.
Anyone seen this and know what I need to try? What prefs should I throw out, and where might I find them?
TIA

Seems to be two separate bugs then.
Have you tried:
1) Throwing away the "com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist" (and possibly the "com.apple.dashboard.plist" -- make sure to do this for ALL USERS) file in your ~/Library/Preferences folder and then restarting?
2) Repairing disk permissions
Just a question: do you guys have multiple user accounts or only one?
I have three accounts, one admin, one Guest (Leopard only), and one parentally controlled.

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Duplicate expose keyboard shortcuts?

I have just bought an apple keyboard to use with my macbook. On the internal keyboard, I use the keys F8-F12 for spaces, expose and dashboard shortcuts. However, on the external keyboard, those keys are used for play, fast forward, and volume controls.
Is it possible to add a second mapping of the shortcuts for expose, etc, to some of the F13-F19 keys (which don't seem to be used for anything else)?
I don't want to just change the keys in the system prefs for expose and spaces to be those higher F-keys, because then when i unplug the keyboard, I won't be able to use the original keys on the internal keyboard.
any ideas?
thanks in advance!

Ray, Thanks for the very helpful response.
To add to your discovery, it also appears that under system preferences/keyboard, there is a box that is defaulted "unchecked" that reads, "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys. When this option is selected, press the FN key to use the special features printed on each key."
That is why my keyboard is over-riding the function keys b/c it is unchecked. When I check this box the expose works as intended.
I also find that my mouse is set up to have the "side" buttons linked with expose.
Under the keyboard shortcuts, I can see where I can check/uncheck the keyboard options but not change them. Still playing around with it...but you definitely solved it for me.
I will mark as such. Good work! Thanks.

Expose Keyboard Shortcut Changes Don't Affect Slow-Mo

Because I use my F keys for working in the Adobe CS2 Suite, I have changed the Expose keyboard shortcuts to require the ctrl key.
However, this did not change the slow-motion Expose key combinations. For example: while the F10 Adobe shortcut now works on the Adobe App, when I try to use the Shift-F10 Adobe shortcut I still get the slow-motion Expose. I do not see that keyboard shortcut anywhere in the preferences menus, so I don't know how to re-map it.
I don't want to lose the slow-mo... I still want it because it still causes envy in my PC using friends! I just want to re-map it.
Can anyone give me a suggestion? Thanks.
PS: This brings up a suggestion: since Apple makes all their own hardware why not put in separate buttons or other hardware controls for Expose & Dashboard? If Microsoft can single-handedly get all their IBM cloners to put a Windows key on all their PCs (genius marketing in the guise of usability), I don't' see why Apple can't do the same with the hardware they design and manufacture (and their button would actually be useful!)
PowerBook 15" Mac OS X (10.4.3) Mac newbie - Have Athlon desktop PC at home - works on a PC based network at wor

I have a similar problem, where I try to publish a flash file using shift-F12 and instead get the slow expose. I really don't care for it, just want to totally disable it. Anyone know how?

Expose/dashboard/and spaces all laggy

I may have the answer all ready but i am just checking for other people's opinions i guess.
I just installed 10.5 on my g4 and the expose/dashboard/spaces features are all really laggy and not nearly as smooth as on my macbook. I think that it is due to the un-upgraded video card. Am i right?
any thoughts or ideas would be awesome.
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The image on the icon associated with my shortcut keeps disappearing. The shortcut still works.

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Nope. under security you can set an administrator password, and under accounts, you can set up a guest account and limit the things that person can access. as for computer access, again, it depends on the privileges you choose as creator of the guest account.
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Various Keys disabled - Cmd-Tab, Cmd-`, Bright+, Bright-, Expose, Dashboard

Before I start - I have to state I do have two cats who like to sit on the keyboard, and might have flicked just the right combination of keys to do all this apart from making the computer "Purr" for a good ten minutes... anyhow -
About a month ago I noticed my 24inch 2.4Ghz iMac runnig 10.5.5 stopped allowing me to switch applications via Cmd-tab (now jumps to the toolbar highlighting the first button) and switching between windows within the same application - Cmd-` does nothing now.
I've also noticed that Bright- (F1), Bright+ (F2), Expose (F3) and Dashboard (F4) no longer responds to the associated tasks.
I've checked the following
* Rebooted machine - reseated the keyboard USB into different USB port
* Screen Shared from my Macbook and tried same key combo (making sure keyboard not at fault) - same response
* Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard - "Use All F1, F2 etc keys as standard function keys" is un-ticked
* Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts - Clicked on "Restore Defaults"
* Universal Access -> Keyboard - Sticky Keys OFF, "Enable access for assistive devices" is un-ticked
The only software other than apple updates that I've installed in this period is apple updates and Microsoft Intellipoint

I recently moved my office about, and had EVERYTHING unplugged, once I plugged everything back in and the system was in a different orientation everything was back to normal...
Solution - Feng Shui

Expose keyboard shortcuts seem to already be taken; i'm confused; help?

Hello,
I'm a mac newbie. Under the mac help instructions for expose, I find these instructions:
xposé provides a quick way to see all open application windows and switch between them. Press the F9 key to see all the windows you have open, or press the F10 key to see the open windows in the application you are currently using. To hide all open windows so you can see the desktop, press F11.
What I find is that f9, f10, and f11 are taken with other shortcuts on the keyboard and I can never get the expose shortcuts to work. I've played around and find no way around this.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.

Ray, Thanks for the very helpful response.
To add to your discovery, it also appears that under system preferences/keyboard, there is a box that is defaulted "unchecked" that reads, "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys. When this option is selected, press the FN key to use the special features printed on each key."
That is why my keyboard is over-riding the function keys b/c it is unchecked. When I check this box the expose works as intended.
I also find that my mouse is set up to have the "side" buttons linked with expose.
Under the keyboard shortcuts, I can see where I can check/uncheck the keyboard options but not change them. Still playing around with it...but you definitely solved it for me.
I will mark as such. Good work! Thanks.

Lost Preferences, Dock, Desktop, Expose, Dashboard, Minimize

So I updated iTunes and Quicktime on my PowerBook G4 1.25 last night, followed by the mandatory restart. Then I put my new printer software on and played around with Adobe CS2 and printed some things off. When I got tired I shut down and crashed on the couch. I awoke with a cold. Seems my Mac had a crash of its own and awoke with a cold too.
It worked fine for a while, until I began working in Dreamweaver...it just froze. When I finally forced a shutdown (after a half hour) I restarted to find that my dock missing, my desktop image gone, Expose inactive, inability to minimize and no Dashboard.
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I just started having this same problem after Firefox crashed the Finder somehow. I've tried repairing the disk, repairing permissions, trashing com.apple.finder.plist and systempreferences.plist, and nothing's working. It happens in all the users on this computer. I tried reinstalling the 10.4.9 update and the latest security update, because I think this happened because I hadn't yet restarted from installing the security update when Firefox crashes. However, the 10.4.9 update didn't help, and it won't actually let me reinstall the security update.
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Items disappear off dashboard after a few seconds

Hi everyone,
I recently upgraded to 10.4.11 and ever since my dashboard has died. When I press F12 the screen greys but all dashboard items are gone. So I proceed to click on the "plus" and discover that when I drag widgets on to the dashboard they appear for a few seconds (about 10 seconds) and then they automatically disappear. I did a search on this forum for similar problems and noticed that someone recommended I delete a few pref files as follows:
com.apple.dashboard.plist
com.apple.dashboard.client.plist
I did this but still the same problem remains (although I didn't restart OS-X after deleting the pref files - which I will do after posting this message).
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Gitanjali

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I got a new Macbook about 2 and a half months ago and since then i have this problem with dock, expose and dashboard where they just suddenly don't respond.
This has happened about 10 times so far and i can't think of anything that causes it.
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When I started up again last night after it happened again it was acting really slowly and froze for a few minutes.
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I tried force quitting finder and it didnt help. Neither has repairing or verifying disk permissions.
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Hello omni:
You might try running repair disk from your software install DVD.
Barry

NVidia GT 120 and intermittent low frame-rate with Expose, Dashboard...

I have an iMac early 2009 with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 (256 Mo) graphic card.
I have intermittent low frame-rate problems with Expose, Dasboard and several other large animations...
For example, when I trigger Expose or Dashboard, the animation may sometimes be choppy (with few intermediate images) to very choppy (practically no intermediate images)...
The second after, the same animation may feature a very high frame-rate...
Neither Apple diagnostic tool nor TechTool Deluxe finds any hardware problem.

I have the same iMac, and also have this same problem.
When I first activate Dashboard, the animation is choppy. If I activate it several times in a row very quickly, the animation smooths out noticeably. It's as though the video card is asleep, or cycled down, and then wakes up and springs into action.
This is testable. If I run the command line utility OpenCL Bench immediately following a restart, my iMac's GT 120 gives a time of 14 seconds. If I open iTunes, turn on the visualizer, and then run OpenCL Bench again, the GT 120 gives a time of 1.7 seconds! If I turn off the visualizer, wait a few seconds, and re-run OpenCL Bench, the GT 120's time increases to 5.6 seconds.
The same performance increase/decrease shows up with Dashboard. If I open Dashboard with the iTunes Visualizer running, right off the bat, Dashboard's animation is very smooth. If I turn off the visualizer and wait about 30 seconds, Dashboard's animation is back to choppy.
This is not dependent on the iTunes Visualizer. I can have the "OpenCL Procedural Grass and Terrain Example" running, for example, and get the same results from OpenCL Bench and Dashboard.

Slow user interface graphics - Finder, Expose, Dashboard, etc...

Hi,
I just bought a new Mac Mini 2.0 w/ 1GB RAM.
I'm not a gamer, so I didn't think the integrated graphics would be an issue for me. However, even simple things like opening Dashboard, dragging a Finder window, or double clicking to zoom on a photo in iPhoto are a little choppy. I noticed that if I do the same thing 2-3 times in a row, it is quick the 2nd and 3rd time. It is like there's a little lag to "wake up" the integrated graphics or something.
Put another way, if I open Dashboard after it hasn't been open for a while, it is a bit choppy. But, if I press the Dashboard key on the keyboard a few times it speeds up to regular speed for the next few times.
If I grab a Finder window to drag it, it is choppy for the first second or so -- then it is smooth and fluid.
I upgraded to 4GB of RAM and verified that the graphics card is getting 256 MB... but still having the same issue.
Computer is hooked up through Mini DVI to DVI port to a 20" Aluminum Apple Cinema Display.
So far not very impressed with this machine. It is faster in a lot of regards than my old PowerBook G4, but it is pretty sad when a new computer can't even drag a window around the screen without stuttering!
Anyone else noticing this?
Thanks! Hoping there's some sort of fix.
(I have erased and installed 10.5.6, no luck ... upgraded to 10.5.7, no luck.)
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anv wrote:
I notice the dashboard choppy transition. It occurs when I drag the mouse to the dock and click on the dashboard icon. If you keep the mouse on the icon and click it again the fade in and fade out transitions become smooth. However, if you move the mouse out of the icon and back, you will get choppy fade in transition no matter how long you have been away from the icon. Probably some memory management optimising technique. I'm using mini 2009 with diy upgraded memory to 4GB osx 10.5.7.
I see the same. I googled for this specific behavior and this thread was the first hit.
I'm on a 17" MBP I got a few days ago, now with 10.5.7. I believe this behavior was seen on 10.5.6 as well. It appears it has to do specifically w/ launching Dashboard from Dock. Here are some observations:
1) If you move the mouse to Dashboard icon on the Dock, click once to launch it, the fade-in transition will be choppy. Don't move the mouse, but click again, and the fade-out is smooth. Don't move the mouse, click one more time, and the fade-in is also smooth. So it seems like that very first launch is all that's choppy. Now close Dashboard and try (2), next.
2) Click and hold the Dashboard icon on Dock to pop up the menu. Release the mouse button. Go up to "Open" and click. The fade-in is smooth. Close Dashboard, try (3)
3) Click-hold Dashboard icon on the Dock to pop up the menu. Choose "Show in FInder". In the Finder window, launch Dashboard. Fade-in is smooth.
Launching via the laptop Function keys is also smooth. Clearly Dock has a quirk.
As for moving Finder windows around, etc, those are always zippy.

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No they did not, but I fell like they should replace the icons on F3 and F4 since they are so much easier to get to using gestures.

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Hi,
Thanks very much for guiding me.
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Izhar

Remove with extreme prejudice: Spaces, Expose, Dashboard, TimeMachine

How do I switch these totally off, or remove then entirely, safely?
What else can I do to speed up 10.5.8, e.g. switch off or remove? (and by speed up, I mean by a noticeable amount)
thanks

Hi,
Day to Day I use Firefox.
I seem to remember that until I set a Page for Safari to go to (a "Home" Page) it opened with Top Sites.
Having tried it again I see that you can set or unset the option to display the Top Site icon in the bookmark bar by going to Safari Menu > Preferences > Bookmarks (It is the top option),
Also when I then use this icon to Display th Top Sites page there is an Edit button lower left.
This marks each Top Site with two icons; one to delete/"Never Include" and one to make them Permanent.
I have never found it going to a site that I had not typed in the URL space or having done a Search then going to the Search site of my choice.
(I also found that if you change the icon size of the Top Sites, it takes a while to fetch the info of what the pages look like.)
After that it seems it is learning from your own Browsing what to include (like Mail learns what you consider Junk)
I am sure someone has probably found a way to delete the option but hiding the Bookmark bar icon would be a start.
7:38 PM Monday; October 11, 2010
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Disappearing Expose/Dashboard Shortcuts

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