Hello Alec, Monday, July 18, 2005, 7:29:31 AM, you wrote:
> There's been recent discussion of key remapping etc. Alan had you come > accross this from Microsoft? Is it of any relevance to your efforts? >>> the MSKLC (Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator). It allows you to create > your own keyboard driver very easily. See > http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx . It's free stuff << Thank's Alec, yes I think that would be interesting/useful, especially for non-English language users. I was unable to dowload the 8 MB program which is linked to from that page, for technical reasons which I won't attempt to describe here. Anyway, I don't think it would be useful to me personally as I use English and I think it would be most useful to non English users. Going from their description, this is a tool for creating a new keyboard layout. There are already many keyboard layouts, one for each supported language. Creating a new one for a fictitious language, or for a language which is not currently supported, would be an another interesting way to customise the keyboard. My best guess (only a guess without seeing the actual program) is: I don't think it can enable us to customise the extra internet/multimedia keys on proprietary keyboards such as Logitech's, except possibly the subset of those extra keys which send VKs and SCs in the standard list such as Browser Back and VolumeUp, which are in the All_Keyboard_Codes.txt list I uploaded. As I understand it, keyboard layouts are in the same department as language code pages. That is quite different from remapping scan codes which happens at an earlier stage in how the computer deals with a key being pressed. I think the program which your link can download would be specially useful to people who don't use standard US English and who are not satisfied with the language support for their locally purchased keyboard (some have different physical keys on them from the US standard). Or maybe there is no keyboard hardware, and no keyboard layout (code page), which is tailor-made for their language and they have to make do with modifier combinations like Ctrl+Shift+a to get an accented or non-western character. I think the program you linked to "The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator" would add one more regkey to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts (notice that final "s") which is a very different thing from the optional "ScanCode Map" value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout (without the final "s") The first of those affects what happens at a subsequent stage, i.e. what effect happens from sending the usual scan code. The second of those remaps the scan code sent by each keypress, at a very early stage in the process. Thanks for the link Alec. I think it can be useful to some other people here. Alan Attention: PowerPro's Web site has moved: http://www.ppro.org Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/power-pro/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
