OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Utilities

Soft keymap utility

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RickCHodgin:
Is there a utility I can run that will recognize which app is in the foreground and perform auto-key translations from what I type to what the app expects?  If not, does anyone know the general direction I'd need to head in to write such a utility?

I'd like to use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V for Copy/Cut/Paste, and I have a dozen other keystrokes I'd like to use rather than the ones in the OS/2 apps.

TYIA.

xynixme:

--- Quote from: Rick C. Hodgin on November 07, 2018, 06:19:53 pm ---Is there a utility I can run that will recognize which app is in the foreground and perform auto-key translations from what I type to what the app expects?
--- End quote ---

Certainly not. The industry actually makes money by selling certificates and by changing designs, so "your average user has no clue what's new, and your expert requires a new cerificate and may experience difficulties with the new menu structure".

An Open Menu design would be better, in theory. If you believe that "Exit F4" has nothing to do with the "File" of its menu, then you can channge menus and define other keys.

You will have to hack (all) apps. If you are using WordPerfect for DOS to manage old documents and press Alt-F4, then what should happen?

And you will have to manage your own database, to define what you'd like to use and what apps should expect. Without any conflicts.


--- Quote ---I'd like to use Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V for Copy/Cut/Paste, and I have a dozen other keystrokes I'd like to use rather than the ones in the OS/2 apps.
--- End quote ---

Those keystrokes may work too, with more than one OS, and I presume it will be easier to contact authors of apps to change assigned keystrokes. I wouldn't consider customized changes for one user, though. Unless it's a quality improvement, like supporting both Ctrl+V and Shift-Insert.

I guess different keystrokes may account for over 50% of the existing editors (vi, ...) and file managers (Norton Commander, ...). :-\

The last version of MS Office for Win-OS/2 does offer the user a few optional different keystrokes of that era, like IIRC the "/" of Lotus for DOS in Excel or w.r.t. Alt-F4 of WordPerfect for DOS.

"Dynamic Keyboard Remapping" won't be worth the extraordinary efforts, if it's possible at all. "Esc" doesn't always escape, and so on.

Andreas Schnellbacher:
In some cases the PM accelerator key table of an executable can be changed by editing its resources. That handles keys defined as accelerator keys. For those that are defined via WM_CHAR messages, you probably need to recompile it.

Dave Yeo:
There'll be programs such as the Mozilla apps that use both the common accelerators as well as the Apple ones.
Simpler just to learn the proper keys as they work most everywhere accepting possibly Apples. Even Linux mostly recognizes CTRL-INS, SHIFT-INS and SHIFT-DEL for copying and pasting.

RickCHodgin:

--- Quote from: André Heldoorn on November 10, 2018, 12:43:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick C. Hodgin on November 07, 2018, 06:19:53 pm ---Is there a utility I can run that will recognize which app is in the foreground and perform auto-key translations from what I type to what the app expects?
--- End quote ---

"Dynamic Keyboard Remapping" won't be worth the extraordinary efforts, if it's possible at all. "Esc" doesn't always escape, and so on.

--- End quote ---

It would be a patch to they keyboard driver.  Based on what app has foreground focus, let the incoming keyboard keystroke pass thru natively, or replace it with another keystroke.  It would require minor keystroke buffering for candidate keys, but little else apart from translation.

It wouldn't need to even be smart.  Just the ability to intercept and replace, all setup by the user, or loaded from a shared file setup by another.

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