Key mapping in OSX?

[125ml]

Ok, having great fun with my new IBM Model M (new to me at least).
Now using it as my main keyboard for my work machine (Windows 7) and my home machine, a macbook pro.
I've been able to remap the keys I need in the registry on my work machine (they don't allow any software that they haven't approved to be installed)
but the Mac is posing more of a conundrum.

The lack of the Mac Command key is proving to be a bit of an issue as I have lots of keyboard shortcuts that use it.
I'd like to remap the Command key to my left control key, but only for this board, not in the global settings (that will really screw me up if I have to use the keyboard on the macbook).

Any suggestions?
Is there a 3rd party app that I can use or even some terminal wizardry....

Thanks in advance.
(ps. maybe I'm not using the right keywords, but I couldn't find what I was looking for with a search of the forum).

[phobus]

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier keys.

Lets you re-map modifier keys (caps, ctrl, alt, and option if you were on a mac board) at will, with different settings for each keyboard. The catch here is that you can't remap only the left ctrl key, as you'd like. It'll remap both instances of that key. Your only real option with the M without some sort of third-party app is to remap caps lock.

[theferenc]

There is a piece of software that will let you do what you want. I found it here a while back for a friend (in a similar situation), but will have to track it down again.

It purports to be able to have different mappings for an external keyboard from the internal one. Not sure how useful it is in practice, but it gets some love from folks.

Also, for what it's worth, she remapped:
caps -> control
both control -> alt
both alt -> command

which was useful, as it allowed her muscle memory for shortcuts to come in to play, since command is traditionally adjacent to the space bar.

Edit: thank god for IM logs. Here's the link: http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/

[nathanscribe]

There's also Ukelele and Spark; Ukelele is something I haven't put much time into but Spark took about half a second to get working.  Whether you can remap keys by location or just by function I don't know.  They're both free anyway.

As for selecting, if you use more than one keyboard layout, you can switch between them with Command-space.

[125ml]

Thanks everyone. I'll give them all a try and post my findings on which one fits the bill best.

[theferenc]

So, I'm not sure if this matters to the OP or not, but spark is an input manager. Many security policies (including the default one in 10.6, I believe) disables input managers for security reasons.

Ukelele looks more like a tool to use the built in keymapping the system supports. And given that it acts as another international layout, that looks pretty awesome. Great if you only use a single language. Unfortunately, I have a few languages on mine, so switching between them might well be a hassle.

Let us know how it works for you. I'm curious to know if the tool I linked works automagically or not (don't have a mac anymore to test it).

[mattdurham]

http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/ <- This is an awesome utility. I love it, since I can have CapsLock be command, except in terminal where I want it to be ctrl for emacs. I wrote a bit about it here
http://mattdurham.tumblr.com/post/2678237461/keyremap4macbook

[theferenc]

So does it work as it seems to, in that you can have different remaps for internal and external keyboards, as well as for different applications?

[Brummell]

So does it work as it seems to, in that you can have different remaps for internal and external keyboards, as well as for different applications?

I'd like to know that too, that would be a perfect solution for a Macbook Pro I used docked most of the time.

[125ml]

Well I've come up with a solution that works for me.
The secret is another application called PCKeyboardHack from here...

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

This allows you to remap the Ctrl-R key to the command key. Simple as a tick box.
As the keyboard on my Macbook Pro doesn't have a Ctrl-R key (only one on the left) I can safely remap it without the need for multiple keyboard profiles.
I found this from the link that theferenc gave out. Seems to be an essential add on to get the magic from the main application.
It's also allowed me to remap my caps lock to a keyboard shortcut. In my case Option-Space, which fires up Alfred (similar to Quicksilver or Launchbar).
Now thats really good as I've always thought caps lock was a waste of a perfectly good key.

I couldn't get Spark to work due to the security policy on OSX.
Ukelele does look to give the complete control of the keyboard but I'd already got to a solution that works for me before starting to play.
Over the next couple of days I'll have a play and see if it can get it up and running.

[nathanscribe]

Hmm, Spark works for me on 10.6.7.  It's probably a bit out of date now anyway and is very basic - I just used it to add volume controls to a tenkeyless.  I'll have to try that other one in the link above some time.

[mattdurham]

Keyremap is so far the only solution that can do exactly what I want, its a bit obtuse in places and I had to compile my own version to work. If all you want to do is simply remap the caps lock key for different keyboards the build in options will work.