Brightness Keys, Calibration and Cats, Ack!!!

[EmilyHamerWest]

Mr. Google hasn't provided a definitive answer that I like, so I'm asking here. Is there a way to disable the keyboard brightness control on the apple wireless keyboard? (Yes, I could call Apple care, I guess but sometimes...well, you know. :-D ) 

I use the Spyder calibration system per Damien's instructions and keep the brightness way down, which is fine, I'm used to it, but the cats apparently dislike it and feel compelled to turn it up. Truthfully I can't always blame the kitties, sometimes it's because the keyboard is shoved on top of my iPad in the slide out shelf and it gets bumped, oops. But unless I'm perfectly certain about the count, down so many from full brightness or up so many clicks from dark, it's a bit dicey to get it back to perfect manually, not to mention I forgot a couple of times when it was only a little bit off and had to go back and redo things. 

Surely there is a simple way to prevent this? 

 

[Brian]

16 hours ago, EmilyHamerWest said:

Is there a way to disable the keyboard brightness control on the apple wireless keyboard?

No.

That said, there is a way to make it harder to change it. See below.

16 hours ago, EmilyHamerWest said:

Surely there is a simple way to prevent this? 

Head to your System Preferences and find the Keyboard preferences. Simply check the box next to where it says "Use all F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys..." Then apply the changes by closing out the window by clicking the Red Circle. With this feature turned on, you will need to press and hold the Fn key in the lower left corner of the keyboard and then hit the brightness, volume control buttons, etc. So brightness increase becomes Fn + F2, volume mute/un-mute is Fn + F10, etc.

As for the kitties, if they lay across the keyboard and somehow hit the Fn Key and F1 or F2 at the same time, then it's plausible that the brightness will change on you. That's why my first answer was "No." You can't completely disable them per se, but this method should work for you.

 

[EmilyHamerWest]

Perfect! That worked, and I doubt if the cats are quite that talented. They spend too much time thinking of ways to murder us and not enough figuring out keyboard tricks. ;-) 

Thanks!