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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.
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New Keyboard Shortcut Manager PowerToy Lets Windows 10 Users Remap Their Keyboards

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  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @10:38AM (#59701504)
    that pesky key has been an annoyance to millions ever since the qwerty keyboard existed
    • https://neo-layout.org/ [neo-layout.org]

      I would say "German Keyboard Master Race", but somethow that feels ... off

    • I never use it, but in some apps if you hit it by mistake and keep typing you'll end up closing the window. It drives me nuts.
    • by vyvepe ( 809573 )

      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

      • 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.

        Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

        ; The hex data is in five groups of four bytes:
        ; 00,00,00,00,\ header version (always 00000000)
        ; 00,00,00,00,\ header flags (always 00000000)
        ; 03,00,00,00,\ # of entries (3 in this case) plus a NULL terminator line.
        ; Entries are in 2-byte pairs: Key code to send & keyboard key to

      • I prefer to map caps lock to Super. Helps in emacs.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I removed the keycap for that under Windows. Under Linux, it is much, much easier to just remove the mapping.

  • All the mapping I need is to have a compose key like under Unix. WinCompose has been around for quite some time now.
    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      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

  • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @10:52AM (#59701550)
    Doesn't Autohotkey [autohotkey.com] work on WIn 10?
    • 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.

      • yeah I always thought AHK should have a default 'tool' that does something without having to write scripts. AHK is good and solves most problems on windows but like you say, they would at least need to copy paste a script.
    • 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)

    by jabberw0k ( 62554 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @10:54AM (#59701560) Homepage Journal
    Windows 10, now catching up with what TSRs could do on DOS in 1984 !
  • is slashdot. Anyone using Windows here?
    • 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"?

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      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.

    • 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!

  • 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

    • 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

    • 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.

      • The thumb is for the space bar only. Anyone who dials a telephone with their thumb looks ridiculous at best. I honestly cannot figure how anyone holds a "telephone" and simultaneously manages to press a button with their thumb of the same hand without having prehensile thumbs, triple joint extensions, or magic.
        • Evolution, of course. Younger generations seem to have developed lizard-like gripping surfaces on their hands.
    • Switching between keyboard layouts shouldn't be too difficult for most people, especially if only a few non-alpha keys are being swapped. Of course, this might be more frustrating with modifier keys. Perhaps the most commonly encountered, outside of laptop/compact keyboard nonsense, would be the various forms of single/two-row Enter keys. On laptop keyboards, the most common complaint I hear is coping with changes of Ctrl vs. Fn location at the bottom-left. I grew up with IBM ThinkPads and Compaq LTEs, and
  • What will they re-innovate to how it used to b next? The Start menu? ... Oh, wait!

  • So when do the inevitable patches come out for security issues and crappy code?
  • 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

  • This has been baked into the registry since windows 7 at least, I've used sharp keys for years to remap media buttons into additional F keys for macro scripts.
    • by Tx ( 96709 )

      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, that's what I use and works perfectly fine in Win 10.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      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.

  • by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Friday February 07, 2020 @01:18PM (#59702118) Homepage Journal

    Now it no longer uses Bing and is much much faster.

  • 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...

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      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.

  • 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!

  • I wonder if it would be possible to disable single Alt key press which currently enters menu or ribbon. This is what always makes me mad.
  • MS finally catches up (well, somewhat), decades late, to others and that causes "huge excitement"? Are Windows users collectively suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

There's no future in time travel.

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