Disabling Logitech R700 remote buttons for Keynote
By default, this otherwise lovely clicker has one major flaw, when used on a MacBook. If you hit the button just below the “next” button — the one that looks like a blank-screen button — then you actually get dumped out of the presentation entirely. And there’s no way to get back into the presentation either, since the “play presentation” button does something random too.
Here’s how to make these buttons simply not do anything in Keynote.
(Yes, you could remap them properly, to blank the screen or to play the presentation. But I specifically want them to do nothing. I don’t want people hitting those buttons and strange things happen. I simply want them to do nothing.)
- Download Karabiner, and install it
- Open Karabiner
- Under “Misc&Uninstall”, uncheck ‘use prepared settings”, and then click “Open private.xml”
- Replace the empty XML file with this one.
- Back in Karabiner, under “Change Key”, hit the Reload XML button
- You should see a “Disable bottom buttons on Logitech R700” entry. Open it up, and select “R700 for Keynote”
- Under “AXNotifier”, hit the “Restart AXNotifier” button (and do any accessibility things it asks you to).
Now, relax, because now nobody is ever going to get dumped out of that Keynote presentation again, and you won’t have to go sprinting across the floor to your Mac to restart Keynote.
(If your clicker doesn’t take any notice, you might want to double-check the product ID. Find it under “About this Mac” > “System Report” > “Hardware:USB” > and look for “USB Receiver”. )