New Keyboard Shortcut Manager PowerToy Lets Windows 10 Users Remap Their Keyboards (betanews.com) 59
Microsoft's PowerToys utilities have always proved popular, and the arrival of a Windows 10 version was met with huge excitement. New utilities have been released over the last few months, and now there is news of a new addition: Keyboard Shortcut Manager. From a report: Despite the name, Keyboard Shortcut Manager does much more than give you control over keyboard shortcuts. On top of this, the PowerToy can be used to remap keys -- something that will be welcomed by power users, developers and people switching from macOS or Linux to Windows. At the moment, Keyboard Shortcut Manager is still in development, and it's not quite clear when there will be a version to download. But judging by how quickly the existing PowerToys have moved from embryonic ideas into fully fledged products, it shouldn't be too long before an installable version appears. When it does, it could be known simply as Keyboard Manager.
Where is the "AD" marker? (Score:2)
EOM
disable the CAPSLOCK key (Score:3)
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No, it means keyboard designs have gotten worse in an unrelenting focus on looks over usability.
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Has nothing to do with typing. Caps-lock is right next to the wasd keys, used for movement on many pc games. The keyboard is my IO to the game, together with the mouse, and quick reactions come at the cost of accuracy. Despite being a gamer's keyboard (G15) there's some things i'd have designed slightly different, but it already does a pretty decent job.
The caps-lock key even has a little gap/indentation so you are less likely to hit it when you want to use the wasd 'cursor' keys. However, i find caps-lock
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Literally the only reasons I picked a Razer keyboard were the availability of mechanical switches and software that would let me remap the capslock. Capslock is a relic of the original typewriter and is taking up valuable real estate that should be repurposed.
Re:disable the CAPSLOCK key (or a better idea) (Score:2)
Has nothing to do with typing. Caps-lock is right next to the wasd keys, used for movement on many pc games. The keyboard is my IO to the game, together with the mouse, and quick reactions come at the cost of accuracy. Despite being a gamer's keyboard (G15) there's some things i'd have designed slightly different, but it already does a pretty decent job.
Precisely why I always remap my keys from WSAD to ESDF - because that puts my hand in the normal typing position. I can find the F because it (should) have the extra nub to tell my left index finger to "go here". And it moves me further away from Caps Lock as well, while putting my pinky right on L-SHIFT.
If I can't remap the keys, then I can usually use the arrow keys, but any time I have to use WSAD it messes me up.
To me using WSAD is like driving a race car with the seat tilted back, your left arm on to
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Remap AWSD to QWED, it is much more ergonomic.
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It's not hard to disable capslock in Windows (I presume it's possible in Linux, but I don't know). GIYF, or look here: https://www.tenforums.com/tuto... [tenforums.com]
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I've never understood the attraction of WASD, myself. I find the keypad much more functional for gaming. 25 keys within reach of a hand and it even has a home position dot on the '5' for easy re-centering.
You mean Mod3? (Score:2)
https://neo-layout.org/ [neo-layout.org]
I would say "German Keyboard Master Race", but somethow that feels ... off
The one I hate is the Windows Context Menu Key (Score:2)
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CapsLock key is a very usefull key to be swapped with Escape key. Here is registry script which does it (works on Win7 & Win10):
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 03,00,00,00, 01,00,3A,00, 3A,00,01,00, 00,00,00,00
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On my machines, I swap the left CTL key and capslock. I use this file I found somewhere on the internet many years ago; it also has helpful tips for making your own mods.
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I prefer to map caps lock to Super. Helps in emacs.
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I removed the keycap for that under Windows. Under Linux, it is much, much easier to just remove the mapping.
Don't disable it, turn it into another backspace. (Score:1)
WinCompose (Score:2)
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Instead Microsoft had added a new Emoji key to their newest keyboards, in the position where the Menu key was. The Menu key is often mapped to Compose under Unix, so the key position is already associated with Compose.
The Emoji key is somewhat superfluous in that it only does what Windows + . already does: which is to pop up the Emoji Picker, which is then mainly operated with the mouse or by matching input against textual descriptions.
I think what Microsoft should do is to expand how the Emoji pop-up work
AHK (Score:3)
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It does, but this sounds like a way to do a simple remapping if you don't need a complex script.
I have one mapped to Win-Enter for a terminal window (mirroring awesomewm on my personal laptop).
Some things that Windows 10 has 'grabbed' also can't get remapped. I want to have Win-R launch wox but since it's already mapped to something it won't let me. It sounds like this may finally be a solution.
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Doesn't Autohotkey [autohotkey.com] work on WIn 10?
Yes it does, but then you need to run your keyboard remapping tool in admin mode to have it work all the time. Otherwise, remapping Win10 keys with Autohotkey works fine, also in strange situations.
I am using AHK at the moment for this and it works good enough. My use case is remapping the Japanese keyboard on my laptop to a European layout with Umlauts. (I prefer Japanese keyboards as a sneaky way to get more keys, so I can have dedicated page up/down keys that my preferred laptop brand removed from other
call it Sidekick (Score:5, Insightful)
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...yah, but does it do Macros??
Here (Score:1)
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It depends. I only have Steam and Battle.net installed on my PC. I occasionally use Chrome to look up game FAQs, etc. Does that count as "using Windows"?
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Do you mean, "Anyone actually able to be productive in anything but a programming capacity?"
Yes, there are many of us who actually use computers to work and aren't programmers or web site admins.
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Yup, guilty.
I can get around using a bash shell just fine. But I actually prefer not to have to read man pages every time I want to use software that isn't quite familiar enough that I've memorized all the options!
Only your keyboard (Score:1)
The problem with any tool like this is that it only works where it's installed and configured the way you want it.
I'm old enough that I got my start when keyboards had the control key where God meant it to be: where IBM insisted on putting the caps lock key. There were always ways to remap them, but that didn't solve the problem because I was using keyboards in all sorts of places where remapping the keys was impossible (work, library, friends' houses, etc.). All I could do was give in; it took me years to
What other keyboard are you gonna use? ;) (Score:2)
The trick is to add so many mappings, that it becomes like a completely separate layout. Like Dvorak, or even better (for Germans) NEO 2.0
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I've given up on the muscle memory argument. I'm 3-4x faster than most when doing things because I grew up when the mouse was optional. But no one else is learning this. No one asks how you do that so fast? I've had people tell other people that I'm like those hacker scenes in movies.
But they don't want to be faster. Or more convenient.
They type with two thumbs and for some reason learning that is okay but at work they can go slowly because "you have to" or something. You've lost the fight.
Thumb (Score:2)
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1980s technology! For your system! Now! (Score:1)
What will they re-innovate to how it used to b next? The Start menu? ... Oh, wait!
Just waiting? (Score:2)
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You're welcome to go look for them if you want. The code is on GitHub, and it's even MIT-licensed. They've accepted more than 200 PRs.
https://github.com/microsoft/P... [github.com]
All I want is one thing (Score:2)
The ability to remap the Ctrl, Alt and Windows keys. I'm used to the Mac keyboard layout and I always hit the wrong key while trying to do a copy/paste.
On a Mac it's the Command key, which is right next to the spacebar, which I can hit with my thumb without really moving my hands (since there's not much difference between pressing the space bar or the Command key).
On Windows, it's the keys in the corners, which requires me to either over-extend and twist my hand to use my thumb to reach it (before of muscle
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This. I've been using it since at least the WinXP days to map the right Alt and Ctrl keys on my pre-Win95 Model Ms to the Windows and Menu keys. It does this by editing the registry, so there's nothing running on a regular basis to keep the keys remapped.
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Magic Keyboard vs Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad [cbsistatic.com].
I agree that their smaller keyboard just plain sucks, I can't stand those four arrow keys cramped together in the space of three keys.
What you need is either their Magic Keyboard with numeric keypad, or just a keyboard from another company.
Sharp keys! (Score:1)
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I used sharpkeys on my previous laptop to give me page up and page down keys without having to use an Fn + combination. But it can't remap combinations such as win+F launching Feedback Hub in windows 10, which I'd love to change. I'm wondering if this powertoy can do stuff like that? Unlikely, I guess.
AutoHotKey anyone? (Score:2)
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I don't, but I do not do any real work on Windows. It is unsuitable for that. But if I ever have to, AutoHotKey will be what I try first.
Remapped my Search Windows key (Score:3)
Now it no longer uses Bing and is much much faster.
One-handed? (Score:2)
Now that the patents have expired, I wish Windows and Linux would add support for Mattias-type halfkeyboard functionality, where the spacebar is overloaded to 'mirror' the keyboard to the key you'd have typed using your other hand.
Example: hold 'space' while pressing 'f', keyboard types 'j'. Hold 'space' while pressing 't', keyboard types 'y'.
It comes in handy if you're using an AutoCAD-like CAD program that expects you to change modes or make selections while simultaneously using the mouse and keyboard...
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You can configure that using existing tools for X11, and hence you can do this on Linux. The functionality has been there for a few decades. It just seems nobody cares enough, so you might have to do it yourself.
Not actually available yet (Score:2)
This tool does not appear to actually be out; the official link [github.com] in the PowerToys GitHub seems to be just a draft specification.
Confusingly the README there includes a "press release" paragraph which states:
Powertoys has just released a new utility called âoeKeyboard Shortcut Managerâ!
I don't see anything in the source tree that looks like any code has even been written yet.
Super keen for it to be released. Disappointed (but not surprised) the breathless headline does not in fact match reality!
Disable single Alt key (Score:1)
"Huge excitement"? WTF? (Score:2)
MS finally catches up (well, somewhat), decades late, to others and that causes "huge excitement"? Are Windows users collectively suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?