Default F key keyboard shortcuts gone

Question

I have the dell xps laptop with ubuntu.

The f keys on the keyboard have specific shortcuts relating to the picture on the keys - to vary brightness of turn on the illumination under the keys.

I'm not sure how but these default f key shortcuts seem to have been replaced with other ones - only the f key ones, the rest of the shortcuts are unchanged. For instance F11 which used to reduce screen brightness now makes a web page full screen.

I know it is possible to define keyboard shortcuts in system settings but many of them are not there and I don't want to have to create custom commands.

It seems like I might have accidentally pressed another keyboard shortcut which toggled the shortcuts only for the f keys.

How can I reset the f key shortcuts to what they were before?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Aha!

So I found if you hold the "Fn" you toggle the function of the F shortcut keys. So somehow I have managed to switch around the two sets of shortcuts such that I can only now use the default ones (which refer hardware shortcuts specific to the PC) if I hold "Fn".

to actually fix the problem and swap around the active F key shortcuts do Fn + Esc