Slightly OT: Keyboard utility needed
Joseph M. Newcomer
take effect is if I hold them down for some number of seconds. My preference would be
that they cannot be turned on without holding down, but a single instant click will turn
them off. I've looked at some alternatives, but nothing I've found thus far is quite
right. If anyone has found interesting tools for keyboard management I'd appreciate some
pointers.
I would also like to disable the various "Windows" keys so they are completely and utterly
disabled forever.
Core reason: I've been spending a lot more time typing on my laptop and every minute I'm
reminded about how truly horrible its keyboard is. I've had to disable the Insert key in
Word, but I can't disable it in other apps, and it is driving me crazy. And I can't
disable Caps Lock (one of the single worst ideas in keyboard layout was to put it where
the Ctrl key was, and yes, I know about the mapping utilities, but I want to actually make
it nearly impossible to hit Caps Lock no matter where it is mapped).
I've considered low-level keyboard hooks, but Vista is going to make this difficult, so
I'd rather avoid that problem.
joe
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
email: newc...@flounder.com
Web: http://www.flounder.com
MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm
Norbert Unterberg
Joseph M. Newcomer schrieb:
> I'm looking for a way to make sure that the only way Caps Lock, Insert, or Num Lock can
> take effect is if I hold them down for some number of seconds.
Not exactly what you asked for, but I have installed Ctrl2Caps on all my
machines I use, and it resolves at least the Caps Lock issue.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Miscellaneous/Ctrl2Cap.mspx
Norbert
Joseph M. Newcomer
are so small that my fingers keep hitting the key above, e.g., when I hit shift, I also
manage, quite often, to hit caps lock; when I hit backspace, I often hit either insert or
num lock, both of which are directly above the backspace key on my keyboard. THere is a
severe impedance mismatch between my finger size and the keyboard size. When I hit keys
incorrectly on the keyboard I see the results immediately, but the caps lock, insert, and
num lock take both recognition time and correction time.
joe
On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:22:49 +0100, Norbert Unterberg <nunte...@newsgroups.nospam>
wrote:
David Ching
news:2jqqo2p2fkcqcg0ts...@4ax.com...
I agree the laptop keyboards are not the best. On my desktop, I use DAS
Keyboard which is one of the few that has independent switches for each key
like the original IBM keyboards. When I buy a laptop, my number 1 criteria
is the keyboard. I can't stand the Lenovo's and other laptops that put the
PgUp/PgDn keys at the top while putting the arrow keys at the bottom. I
just returned a Toshiba P100 because the keys were too hard to press and I
was missing keystrokes.
Did you know Win2K and later has registry settings which affect the key
mappings? Use a program like SharpKeys to adjust these. This obliviates
the need for keyboard filter drivers like Ctrl2Cap. If you want to disable
a key, map it to some unused key that is out of the way.
Why do you say Vista makes low level keyboard hooks difficult? They work
the same as they always have, except SetWindowsHookEx() doesn't inject the
DLL into processes with a higher priviledge than the injector app. If this
is still difficult, you can always put your hook DLL into the AppInit DLLs
as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197571 I have not seen anything that
says this reg key is disabled under Vista. But the main issue with keyboard
hooks is that they function when the app calls GetMessage() to retrieve a
keyboard message. I think this causes your keyboard hook not to work in
console windows, for example.
Most flexible is to write a keyboard filter driver. If you do this, it will
be easier to implement if you allowed the keys to take effect only when a
modifier key like Ctrl or Shift is down at the same time as the Caps Lock,
Insert, etc. (instead of holding the key down for a certain length of time).
That's because it's easy enough for your filter driver to check the state of
these modifier keys and not easy at all for it to implement a timer.
-- David
Joseph M. Newcomer
for $15 (meaning they cost about $4 to build), while I'd rather pay $150 for something
that actually works.
My problem is that my primary criterion for a laptop is raw physical weight, traded off
against price (the lightest-weight reasonable laptop is made by Sony and weighs 2.5 lbs,
but I'm willing to go to 3.5 lbs and save $1000, plus getting a built-in CDW/DVD drive),
and that sticks me with a crap keyboard when I'm travelling.
'(Currently, my new laptop and projector weigh, together, less than either my last laptop
or my last projector individually, and for someone who can't lift much weight, that
matters)
Thanks for the pointer to SharpKeys; I'd gone looking for something that did this a year
or so ago and couldn't find anything.
My understanding with Vista was that it would be hard to build a low-level keyboard hook
because of the DLL privilege issues, and since I don't have my copy of Vista yet, I
couldn't check this out.
I was trying to avoid the keyboard-filter-driver solution only because I don't have a
machine to test it on, and I don't like embedding new drivers in a production machine.
Mark Randall
> My problem is that my primary criterion for a laptop is raw physical
> weight, traded off
> against price (the lightest-weight reasonable laptop is made by Sony and
> weighs 2.5 lbs,
> but I'm willing to go to 3.5 lbs and save $1000, plus getting a built-in
> CDW/DVD drive),
> and that sticks me with a crap keyboard when I'm travelling.
Get yourself an external 'keyboard' like a roll out or a light mapped one.
--
- Mark Randall
http://www.temporal-solutions.co.uk
http://www.awportals.com
David Ching
> My understanding with Vista was that it would be hard to build a low-level
> keyboard hook
> because of the DLL privilege issues, and since I don't have my copy of
> Vista yet, I
> couldn't check this out.
>
Vista is available for download to MSDN subscribers. So is Office 2007.
> I was trying to avoid the keyboard-filter-driver solution only because I
> don't have a
> machine to test it on, and I don't like embedding new drivers in a
> production machine.
>
For this, either Virtual PC or VMWARE work really well. A newcomer (not you
<g>) is Parallel Workstations but I haven't tried that one.
-- David
Joseph M. Newcomer
to be typing at 35,000 feet above Oklahoma, for example, and I prefer to, when I'm
traveling, to sit in bed and work (primarily writing text). These tend to rule out any
option which requires a table top.
joe
On Mon, 25 Dec 2006 12:30:58 -0000, "Mark Randall" <mar...@gEEEEEmail.com> wrote:
>"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newc...@flounder.com> wrote:
>> My problem is that my primary criterion for a laptop is raw physical
>> weight, traded off
>> against price (the lightest-weight reasonable laptop is made by Sony and
>> weighs 2.5 lbs,
>> but I'm willing to go to 3.5 lbs and save $1000, plus getting a built-in
>> CDW/DVD drive),
>> and that sticks me with a crap keyboard when I'm travelling.
>
>Get yourself an external 'keyboard' like a roll out or a light mapped one.
Joseph M. Newcomer
the same time that Bill Gates declares that Apple has won the user desktop.
I'm not sure I trust all the compatibility issues of virtual PCs yet. In particular, some
device drivers have some reputation of not working on virtual PCs, or some versions
thereof.
joe
David Ching
> I'm not sure I trust all the compatibility issues of virtual PCs yet. In
> particular, some
> device drivers have some reputation of not working on virtual PCs, or some
> versions
> thereof.
It's true device drivers bound for specific hardware that is not virtualized
won't work. But something at a higher level like a keyboard filter driver
will most definitely work.
-- David
David Ching
> I'm intersted in the DAS keyboard; modern keyboards are crap. They are
> designed to sell
> for $15 (meaning they cost about $4 to build), while I'd rather pay $150
> for something
> that actually works.
>
The DAS really feels good and at the end of the a long programming day, I'm
less fatigued by using it. However, it's not ideal for programming. There
are no markings on the keyboard, which is OK if you're a touch typist and
know where the letters are, but for programming where we use things like F10
and F8 to debug, we are forced to count positions of these keys in order to
press the right ones. DAS does a great marketing spiel for this hinderance.
They say you learn to type faster because you can't rely on looking at the
keys... when in actuality they just didn't want to put up with the cost of
having multiple SKU's for keyboards with different markings per language.
Now that's spinning at it's finest! :-)
-- David