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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: JohnehJH on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:13:53

Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: JohnehJH on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:13:53
So I just got my new Filco tenkeyless, and I love it. Thanks everyone for the advice and such. Only had two qualms with it:



The only thing I really used was the volume up, down, and mute. Out of curiosity how have you folks dealt with the media keylessness of mechanical boards?
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: alaricljs on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:17:46
Autohotkey is a good choice... Win-plus and Win-minus for vol, Win-0 for mute.. or anything you can think of.
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: NimbleRabit on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:30:43
Quote from: alaricljs;325223
Autohotkey is a good choice... Win-plus and Win-minus for vol, Win-0 for mute.. or anything you can think of.

I'll second this.  You can choose exactly what keys you want to use and get all of your functionality back.  I personally like this script for volume control, I appreciate having a simple little display:

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic49219.html (http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic49219.html)
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: Fwiffo on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:31:13
Alternatively, you can use an operating system that actually lets you configure keyboard shortcuts for things. But I use Autohotkey when I'm in Windows.
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: Culinia on Tue, 05 April 2011, 16:37:26
I personally use the application button for volume down and right-ctrl for volume up. Mute = hold application key down.
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: JohnehJH on Tue, 05 April 2011, 17:50:59
Thanks for the help. I set mine to Insert, Home, and Page up as mute, vol down, and vol up respectively. Only because I don't use those keys and I didn't want to have to hit ctrl, shift, or win key.
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: DrunkenDonut on Tue, 05 April 2011, 19:11:09
For those of you in OS X and want to add hot keys (more than the built-in functionality gives you), give Spark a try. (http://www.shadowlab.org/Software/spark.php). It'll do the usual system volume, iTunes control, etc. It can also run scripts, open apps, activate menu items too.

Spark and Autohotkey are definitely must-haves.
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: clack on Wed, 06 April 2011, 00:09:52
i use winamp and i just bind rctrl + arrow key for various playback functions. rctrl + left arrow for prev track, down for play/pause, right for next track, up for playlist
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: theferenc on Wed, 06 April 2011, 01:06:27
Autohotkey should do it in windows, and kde at least has an equivalent tool built in (for this level of stuff, anyway). And I think there is a linux version of autohotkey, but I forget what the developer called it.

Or you can use xmodmap, depending on how your linux system was set up -- X has support for volume control, but your mixer has to support it. Isn't sound in linux fun?
Title: Best solution for no media keys?
Post by: The Solutor on Wed, 06 April 2011, 05:04:40
Caming from the Sidewinder X6 (i bought it also because the handy volume rocker) I was very worried about the lack of a nice volume control on my keyboard.

I searched a bit and the only straightforward solution is the expensive (and, seem, not well supported in windows) Powermate (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate).

So I've decided to buy a cheap keyboard provided with this control and dismantle it keeping just the knob.

But then I found Volmouse (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/volumouse.html), is very handy and widely configurable to meet every needs, and using the scroll wheel as volume knob is better than any key combinations.


I also use a sw to have an on screen volume display, there are a lot of them starting from the sidewinder SW to 3rvx to "sound volume hotkeys"