Adjust Brightness on MacBook Pro

Hello,
When I press the FN and F1 or F2 key, I expect the brightness of my display to go up or down. However, neither happens when I press them. It's like the functionality is disabled or something.
Any ideas?
Thanks.

 

...
Try pressing F1 and F2 without holding the Fn key.

 

Duh! I thought I tried that, but apparantly not.
Thanks for the reply.

 

oh i have a good problem. im going to steal this thread.

i want the first five function buttons f1-f5 to perform the hardware functions (brightness and audio controls) but i want the f9-f12 keys to do the window controls. i dont care about adjusting the keyboard backlighting. i want to invert the fn controls for the f1-f5 keys, basically.

any help?

 

You want to change it so that you have to hold Fn to make the buttons work?? You can do that in System Preferences>Keyboard and Mouse and check the box that's there.

 

no you dont understand!!! argh!

 

Aren't you the 'self-proclaimed hybrid osx/windows expert'? Just kidding, but maybe you could clarify your question.

What exactly do you want the F1-F5 keys to do and in which OS (Windows Vista/XP or OSX)?

 

He wants it both ways, one way for F1-F5 and the other for F9-F12.

And no, you can't do that as a simple preference in OS X (it's all or nothing for that particular setting in the system preferences). I'm sure you could get around it with some coding or maybe even uncovering hidden settings, though I doubt the latter and the former is too much work for what it does, I'd say. I don't know if it's possible at all, but I think so.

 

I lol @ you chef.

Yea i have no idea how you would do that either... never thought of it.

 

i just have too many other projects going on at the moment. namely- macfuse and ntfs-3g.

i can't seem to get it working because there is a glitch in boot camp that occurs if you reinstall osx without first restoring your hard drive to single volume.

once im done with that i will fix my keyboard.