31 March 2006

Keyboard remapping

So now I'm a little more settled into the office complete with the dual monitors, speakers and a few other creature comforts I didn't have in Microsoft UK, I need to progress onto more practical issues - apart from figuring out why US light switches are all upside down (you lift to turn on - wierd), it's learning to cope with a US keyboard. (Oh, and don't get me started on the mm/dd vs dd/mm debacle - that's just doing my head in).

For the most part, the keyboard is not a huge problem, but why they decided you need a double-sized delete key on this particular keyboard (maybe American's like to erase lots of words?) and not have an "Ins" key, I'll never figure. I'm one of those people who find Shift-Insert as natural to use as Control-V and it's only today I've figured out quite how often I did use Shift-Insert rather than Control-V for paste.

The big bug-bear I have is lots of things being in the @wrong@ place for example - point in case @ and " are swapped. And where's the pound key? All I've got is # on Shift-3. Not easy to remember Alt-0163 on the numeric keyboard for a £. So my mission when I get a chance is to find some tippex, relabel Shift-2 to be a " and Shift-' to be a @, then figure out how to remap the keyboard. Probably a weekend job, although that'll be largely taken up by finding just the right-sized beer fridge for the office :)

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# Adam Bell said:
John,

Glad to see you're settling in. I suppose just using a UK KB is a bit obvious? ;)

Cheers

Adam
31 March 06 at 2:11 AM
# Dirk said:
Why not use http://www.daskeyboard.com/ ?  No labelings at all - Just load the appropriate keyboard locale and you're good to go!

If only they had a "natural" version - I would buy one instantly. I learned to type on an AZERTY keyboard (nl-BE), then switched to QUERTY (en-US) and am currently typing on a QWERTZ (de-DE) keybaord with en-US loaded.

Bottom line: never let the markings on a keyboard distract you. If the markings are not what you want them to be, just load another keyboard layout and ignore the markings.

This all assumes you can type blindly with 10 fingers.
Dirk
31 March 06 at 2:22 AM
# Janson said:
Hi John,

Ahhh this so much reminds me of testing early Vista builds... they would stay with a US keyboard layout even if you selected UK!!!! :o(

To help your problem, I would imagine you can just change the regional settings to a uk keyboard.  That should get the " and £ back in the correct place! :o)

31 March 06 at 3:57 AM
# Toby Brown said:
Glad to hear you are settling in, and thanks for brightening up a dreary Glasgow Friday morning!
31 March 06 at 4:15 AM
# George Clement said:
I hear this keyboard remap is pretty good
http://www.autohotkey.com/
31 March 06 at 7:00 PM
# Paul Loonen said:
Why don't you install the US International keyboard. Besides from other accented characters, you get your £-key ... After a bit of hunting, you'll find that it is exactly where you thought it is: on the $ key - just try Altgr+Shift+$ ...

Have phun in the US!
01 April 06 at 3:52 PM
# Michael Kennedy said:
You could always wait for the Optimus keyboard, due sometime in the future.  http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
03 April 06 at 12:44 PM

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