Re: Can keyboard assignment use Windows key?

["Martin J. Osborne" osborne@xxxxxxxx]

Sorry for my delayed response, Carl. Too many things on the go!

You write "Note that you can still assign the grave accent (`) to key 41
when it's used as a shifting key; the character will appear when the key
is released." Do you mean that after altering the registry, the
grave/tilde key will generate the same code as it does now in any
program (not just in XyWrite)? (I think that's what you mean. The
grave/tilde key is important in any program for editing TeX files,
because the grave is used as an opening quotation mark.)


You say also that I'll need to reassign shift-grave/tilde. Will I need
to reassign all the other "shifted" versions of the key? (E.g.
Ctrl-Shift, Alt-Shift, Ctrl.) Will other programs also not respond to
Shift-grave/tilde?


Do you reg files add an entry called "Scancode Map" in the Keyboard
Layout folder of the registry? If that's the case, is one way to
reverse a change simply to delete that entry? (I realize another way is
to restore a previous backup.)


(The reason for my being interested in assigning stuff to Win+key is
that on my desktops I have lots of things assigned to keys on the number
pad. I've now started doing serious work on a laptop on occasion, where
using the number pad is a pain (and some keys are missing altogether, if
I'm not mistaken---e.g. the * on the number pad).)


Thanks
Martin

On 1/10/2011 11:40 PM, Carl Distefano wrote:


Reply to note from "Martin J. Osborne"
Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:14:42 -0500

Martin:


My guess is that if you couldn't figure out how to reassign the
Win key...


OK, I found a way to do it. If you reconfigure one or both Win keys
as the grave accent/tilde key (the key to the left of "1" on top row
of the main keyboard), then the Win key will issue the expected key
code of 41 in XyWrite. You can then edit your KBD file to reassign
key 41 as a shifting key.

Here are Registry edits to reconfigure the left, right, and both Win
keys as the grave accent/tilde key:

http://users.datarealm.com/ammaze/xfer/leftwin.reg
http://users.datarealm.com/ammaze/xfer/rightwin.reg
http://users.datarealm.com/ammaze/xfer/bothwin.reg

Download the desired file, then, at the DOS prompt, command (for
example):

LEFTWIN.REG

Reply Yes to the prompt, then reboot Windows to activate the change.

Note that you can still assign the grave accent (`) to key 41 when
it's used as a shifting key; the character will appear when the key
is released. You'll need to reassign the tilde (a/k/a discretionary
hyphen). I believe the traditional XyWrite assignment for this char
is Ctrl-hyphen, so you may already have it there.

Let us know how it works.



--
Martin J. Osborne
http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne

Theoretical Economics
http://econtheory.org

PoET
http://theory.economics.utoronto.ca/poet