CTRL+F1 doesn't work, it only turns my sounds off or on.  Is there a menu command or...???

Also tried FN+ F1 still no good.

Nor ctrl fn f1 works either :(

Good grief! It's G+CTRL+F! !!!!!

You can [click-drag] the gradient end points using the gradient tool [g] or the node tool [n] or with some other shape tools.

Here's a link to Inkscape's keyboard and mouse reference. (The shortcut you described is not listed, and doesn't work on my system.)

https://inkscape.org/doc/keys.html