What does the shading around some 48 series keys indicate?

[rprosperi]

(04-18-2020 06:09 PM)Orome Wrote:  

(04-18-2020 06:02 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  ...this is explained on page 4 of the manual.

No, it's not. In fact reading that is precisely what prompted the question, which is about seeking background, insight, or history about why the shading is omitted on 4 of the 12 applications and present on a non-application.

Well, technically you are correct. The section "Organization of the Keyboard" begins on page 1-4 of the User's Guide, while the section "Applications and Command Menus" is on page 1-6; this explains "Keys that have only labels printed in green represent applications". It does not address the shaded background per-se, but it's clear the shade is intended to make the applications stand out from the normal function assignments.

Interestingly, of the 13 keys with only green labels, it defines only 12 of those as applications; UNITS is not included in the list of applications. I think the intention was to use the shading to list all applications, but including it on only a few key of the top row would look wonky and obscure the letter characters below in white.