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#351762 - 23/04/2012 21:08 Couple of useful keyboard utilities for Mac
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3995
Loc: Manchester UK
Just thought I'd share this info with you guys (as well as depositing it in the hive mind)...

I've recently bought a lovely clacky Cherry mechanical keyboard, I love it. It's an absolute pleasure to type on, it's not got the tactile MX Blue key switches but the linear MX Black ones.

Anyway, since I use the keyboard with both a couple of Linux boxes and a couple of OSX boxes (plus a windows VM), I wanted to firstly get the keyboard layout correct (ie. put the # symbol on the actual key and get the @ and " keys the right way round to match the silkscreening on the keycaps). I ended up using a utility called Ukelele:

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ukelele

It allows you generate completely new custom keyboard layouts for OSX easily. It also helped me remap my \ and ˋ keys which, for some reason were physically swapped over according to OSX.

My second task was to harmonise the various command/option/control keys so they behaved the same in all OS'. An app (and probably a kext) called KeyRemap4MacBook came to the rescue.

http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

Using this (install requires a restart) I managed to remap the ctrl key on my keyboard to behave like the command key. So copying something to the clipboard on OSX/Linux/Windows is now exactly the same key sequence on all platforms. You can also set keymaps depending on the application in focus so I'm running in a terminal window, it turns the mapping of that key off so I can still ctrl+c a process to death. I've always found using the command key a pain to use with my little finger, so this seems to work really well.

I also mapped the alt key to the command key, I never use the alt key on the mac, so being able to actually alt+tab between apps in OSX is wonderful. I could always map the alt key onto the command key if I wanted, but I'm not bothering for now, so I currently have three command keys lined up next to each other!

Maybe you guys already have a single app that does this all for you, but I thought I'd share my experiences with you in case you haven't.
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Cheers,

Andy M

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#351763 - 24/04/2012 01:16 Re: Couple of useful keyboard utilities for Mac [Re: andym]
Dignan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12320
Loc: Sterling, VA
Haha, thanks for validating me a little smile I had the exact same need, and Bitt directed me toward the same program in this recent thread. Unfortunately I haven't had time to play with my MacBook much since then, but I'll be getting back to it soon.

I know you work mainly in Linux and OSX, but are you able to get the ctrl key remapped to the same way it works in Windows? Basically, I'm hoping for the following:

Ctrl+...
Z,X,C,V - undo, cut, copy, paste
W - close tab (or window if there's no more tabs)
Tab - go to next tab
Left/Right arrows - previous and next word

There might be others but I can't remember them off the top of my head. They're so ingrained it's like muscle memory. Mainly I just want to be able to edit text like I do in Windows, where I can just fly with the above shortcuts.
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Matt

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#351767 - 24/04/2012 10:20 Re: Couple of useful keyboard utilities for Mac [Re: andym]
tanstaafl.
carpal tunnel

Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5543
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
Originally Posted By: andym
Maybe you guys already have a single app that does this all for you...

smile

tanstaafl.


Attachments
Keyboard.jpg


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"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

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#351768 - 24/04/2012 12:20 Re: Couple of useful keyboard utilities for Mac [Re: tanstaafl.]
andym
carpal tunnel

Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3995
Loc: Manchester UK
Nah, it needs to be black.
_________________________
Cheers,

Andy M

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#351769 - 24/04/2012 13:04 Re: Couple of useful keyboard utilities for Mac [Re: andym]
julf
veteran

Registered: 01/10/2001
Posts: 1307
Loc: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
And make a clicking sound!

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