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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Icarium on Thu, 19 January 2012, 02:23:07

Title: Layout switching in Keyboard
Post by: Icarium on Thu, 19 January 2012, 02:23:07
Has anybody tried something like that? I suppose somebody must have with all those programmable keyboard out there. Wouldn't that fix all issues with games using the codes instead of the mappings and such?
Title: Layout switching in Keyboard
Post by: WhiteFireDragon on Thu, 19 January 2012, 14:54:06
You can do this with hotkeys inside windows7, no need for a Programmable keyboard, although it would be nice.
Title: Layout switching in Keyboard
Post by: dorkvader on Thu, 19 January 2012, 19:49:54
Quote from: WhiteFireDragon;494259
You can do this with hotkeys inside windows7, no need for a Programmable keyboard, although it would be nice.
Yeah, but it's more elegant to do it on the keyboard, so you can use it on others' computers.

@ The OP: I plan to do this on my phantom, and I believe it's also possible with the Access-is keyboard software.
Title: Layout switching in Keyboard
Post by: Icarium on Fri, 20 January 2012, 03:44:02
I want some of those damn access-ises anyway. :/
Title: Layout switching in Keyboard
Post by: boli on Sun, 22 January 2012, 03:14:38
With the remapping feature in the Kinesis Advantage keyboards you can't do it 100% for Colemak. You can move the main keys and their shifted variant, but the Option/Alt layers might be different.

With the Advantage's firmware remapping you not only move the lower case character itself, but all of its key's layers too: the Shift layer of course, and also the Option/Alt layer etc. With Colemak those layers are often different than with QWERTY.

Here's a comparison between the Apple Colemak and the original Colemak. The Apple Colemak did move all QWERTY keys into Colemak positions including the Option/Alt layer, and for this reason it's different than the original Colemak. The same thing would happen if one used the firmware remapping feature instead.

Apple Colemak:
(http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7973/colemakalt.png)

Original Colemak:
(http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/8476/colemakaltoriginal.png)

So, firmware remapping to Colemak with a Kinesis Advantage can work if you don't use the Option/Alt layer much. I do use it for the occasional character with umlaut, like äöü.