Re: Can keyboard assignment use Windows key?

[Carl Distefano cld@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from "Martin J. Osborne" 
Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:20:00 -0500

Martin:

> 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)?

Yes. The Registry mod only affects the scancode returned by the Win
key (changes it to 41). After the mod, the Win key will act exactly
like the grave/tilde key; the grave/tilde key will be the same as
before; both keys will return key code 41 in XyWrite. Of course,
once you modify the Xy KBD file so that key 41 becomes a shifting
key, this will affect both the Win key (after the Registry mod) and
the grave/tilde key within XyWrite (only). You'll have two shifting
keys (three, if you modify both Win keys) for the price of one.

> 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?

Yes, in XyWrite, you'll have to reassign all shifted grave/tilde
assignments. Outside of XyWrite, grave/tilde, unshifted and shifted,
will behave the same as before in all programs.

There's nothing sacrosanct about grave/tilde for this purpose, by
the way. If you'd rather "sacrifice" another key, that's fine, as
long as it's one that reliably returns a key code in XyWrite.
Ideally, the sacrificial key is one that you use little or not at
all within XyWrite. SysReq/PrintScreen would be good, but I couldn't
get it to return a key code in Xy. I don't use grave/tilde that
much, but if you do, maybe it's not the best choice. There are not
many alternatives, however.

> 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?

That's right. I should have given you a Reg edit to delete that
entry. Here it is:

http://users.datarealm.com/ammaze/xfer/redowin.reg

Issue REDOWIN.REG at the DOS prompt, reboot, and default Win key
behavior will be restored.

Hope this helps.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx