F5 has always toggled between Play and Stop. I bought a new HP laptop that uses F5 to turn on and off the backlight on the keyboard. It must intercept Noteworthy software, because F5 no longer toggles bewteeen Play/Stop.
Has anyone discovered an alternative to Play/Stop function key outside the Tools/Play/Play dropdown menus?
This is quite common with HP laptops.
You have two options.
1. Use the function key with F5 and this will perform the play/stop functions.
If however you really wish to have F5 alone perform the actions, then you need to :
2. Go into the BIOS and change the action on the function keys.
Below a link to some more information for you.
To some, this looks daunting, messing around in the BIOS, but it is OK.
http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/The-Next-Bench-Blog/HOW-TO-Disable-The-Fn-Function-on-HP-Laptops/ba-p/77527 (http://h20435.www2.hp.com/t5/The-Next-Bench-Blog/HOW-TO-Disable-The-Fn-Function-on-HP-Laptops/ba-p/77527)
HTH
If a song is playing, Esc will stop play.
So will F6 - although that may not be any help if all the function keys have been remapped by the manufacturer.
Thanks for the information! The combined usage of the Fn key plus the function key (your first suggestion) works for me perfectly. Your font of wisdom saves so many extra steps and the occasional expletive. :D
My new Fujitsu laptop has a toggle feature: Pressing Fn + Esc toggles whether the function keys (a) do the normal function key work; or (b) do the hardware-specific work. Of course, the factory setting was in mode (b) ... After a few expletive-triggering experiences, I downloaded & started to read the manual and found this (it even has a 4th "lock" LED that shows whether the "Fn lock" is on or off) ... maybe yours has a similar feature that saves you pressing Fn every time you need a function key working as a straight function key .
H.M.