Ukulele the right tool?
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Holger Buchholz
May 31, 2018, 3:16:28 AM5/31/18
to Ukelele Users
Hi,
I'd like to know whether ukulele is the right tool for my needs. I need to change the enter key to right-control if pressed together with another key, enter only when pressed individually. And I need to change the accent key so that it doesn't act as a dead key if pressed individually, only if pressed in conjunction with e.g. command. As far as I can tell Ukulele would be able to do that but at the moment I'm a little overwhelmed :-)
Best,
Holger
Sorin Paliga
May 31, 2018, 3:23:56 AM5/31/18
to ukelel...@googlegroups.com
No, system keys cannot be changed with UKELELE. System keys may be modified, to a limited extent, in System preferences/keyboard/modifier keys or by dedicated apps like BetterTouchTool or Karabiner (was KeyRemap4MacBook)
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Gé van Gasteren
May 31, 2018, 6:02:28 AM5/31/18
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Hi Holger,
Keyboard layouts have a limited syntax.
–Changing a dead key into a regular key is easy.
–Using a combination Command+key as a character isn’t recommended and won’t work in all applications. You’ll need to settle for an alternative like Option+key or Shift-Option+key
–Your idea about the Enter key sounds too far-fetched, even with the tools mentioned in Ukelele’s manual:
There may be other ways to achieve your goal – if you like, describe your situation and see if someone here gets a bright idea :)
Other software, such as Better Touch Tool (https://
www.boastr.net/), Karabiner (formerly KeyRemap4MacBook) (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ or DoubleCommand (http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/), can do this and more.
On 31 May 2018 at 09:23, Sorin Paliga <sorin....@gmail.com> wrote:
No, system keys cannot be changed with UKELELE. System keys may be modified, to a limited extent, in System preferences/keyboard/modifier keys or by dedicated apps like BetterTouchTool or Karabiner (was KeyRemap4MacBook)
On 31 May 2018, at 10:16, Holger Buchholz <hbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,I'd like to know whether ukulele is the right tool for my needs. I need to change the enter key to right-control if pressed together with another key, enter only when pressed individually. And I need to change the accent key so that it doesn't act as a dead key if pressed individually, only if pressed in conjunction with e.g. command. As far as I can tell Ukulele would be able to do that but at the moment I'm a little overwhelmed :-)Best,Holger--
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Sorin Paliga
May 31, 2018, 8:19:18 AM5/31/18
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Many people ask things before giving a try to UKELELE and before reading the manual, i.e. what UKELELE can do, and what it cannot do. Some people like wasting time, and populate this forum with criticism and negative thoughts. They should be ignored, in my opinion. That is why I rarely participate in such discussions.
Aural Architect
Jun 2, 2018, 11:34:08 AM6/2/18
to Ukelele Users
Holger,
Karabiner (Karabiner Elements if you're running High Sierra; and KeyRemap4MapBook if you're running Mountain Lion or earlier—the website explains which versions run with which OS version) is DEFINITELY your best bet, and it's a free tool!
It has MANY settings organized by key, or groups of keys. There are also instructions to create your own personalized actions for keys that let you do just about anything. Individual actions can be customized for context— like which application is active or the name of the active window, or if an app is running. You can easily set up keys to do one thing when pressed by themselves, a different thing if pressed twice, and you can have a key send one or more modifier keys if held and pressed with other keys— it even consolidates modifier keys between separate devices!
You didn't give too many specifics, so I can't say for sure if what you want to do has a built in settings; but I would guess that there probably is a setting to do what you want... If not, the easiest way to write your own customized actions for a key is to first look through the list of options and find the setting that most closely does what you want; also make note of any settings that perform the actions you want but for a different key... Then [right_click] or [control+click] the Karabiner app and select Show Package Contents. Navigate down to Resources—Include—checkbox and find the file(s) which are named after the expandable section(s) in Karabiner preferences which contain the closest examples of what you hope to accomplish. Open those XML files, and then in Karabiner preferences on the Misc & Uninstall tab, there is a button to open "Private XML"; click that. A text editor like Sublime or TextWrangler that has syntax support for developers including XML will be helpful in editing the Private.xml while preventing syntax errors.
Basically it's a copy & paste operation. Copy the closest premade config and then paste or edit it to your needs. You'll still have to consult the support files on their website; but it's a lot quicker if you have something to start with, or if you can just "Frankenstein" something together.
I use this tool extensively, it's very powerful and reliable; and not to complicated. And it can do virtually anything!
You proabably won't even need to modify the keyboard layout to prevent the dead action, although if you do need to do that in Ukelele. Find the dead key you want to get rid of (or move to a different "modifier group" and make a note of the name of the "deadkey state" (by opening the "Info" window and click on the middle tab—that information will be show there when you hover over the key). To make it into a regular key, right click the deadkey and select "Make output..." type whatever you want for the key output when you press it.
If you want the dead key only to work with the Command key, you'll have to create a new modifier layer. Normally the command key shares the mapping of the keyboard without any other modifiers, but not always— (to get to the modifier layers, click the modifiers tab in the main window with the virtual keyboard; by the way you'll have to open a copy of the keyboard you want to edit from within Ukelele, it can duplicate any active keyboard; that's the easiest way.) Find the layer that is activated by the Command key— layers can sometimes be activated by multiple sets of modifiers. Click the + to add a new modifier layer, create a new layer but choose to duplicate the mapping of the current/active layer, Select the appropriate modifiers that will activate the layer. Now make sure the original layer will no longer be activated by Command (edit it and remove the Command modifier).
In your new modifier set/layer find the key where you want to put that deadkey and right click and choose Make deadkey. Now find the name of the state (often just numbers) that you noted earlier and select that. You will automatically enter that state. Just click the button to Leave deadkey state above the virtual keyboard. Now you can save the layout, and install it to test...
Hope that is helpful if you haven't already figured it all out.
Another extremely powerful and flexible software tool you may be interested in is called "ControllerMate" by OrderedBytes. It isn't free but considering what it can do I've found it well worth the cost which is $25 (including free updates). However, it is more geared to customizing various different devices individually, and custom keyboards or unusual input devices; it can even take a MIDI (musical instrument controller) and translate the signals into commands sequences or entering blocks of text or whatever you can imagine by pressing the keys, buttons or manipulating the knobs, sliders, etc...
Good luck and enjoy!
Karabiner (Karabiner Elements if you're running High Sierra; and KeyRemap4MapBook if you're running Mountain Lion or earlier—the website explains which versions run with which OS version) is DEFINITELY your best bet, and it's a free tool!
It has MANY settings organized by key, or groups of keys. There are also instructions to create your own personalized actions for keys that let you do just about anything. Individual actions can be customized for context— like which application is active or the name of the active window, or if an app is running. You can easily set up keys to do one thing when pressed by themselves, a different thing if pressed twice, and you can have a key send one or more modifier keys if held and pressed with other keys— it even consolidates modifier keys between separate devices!
You didn't give too many specifics, so I can't say for sure if what you want to do has a built in settings; but I would guess that there probably is a setting to do what you want... If not, the easiest way to write your own customized actions for a key is to first look through the list of options and find the setting that most closely does what you want; also make note of any settings that perform the actions you want but for a different key... Then [right_click] or [control+click] the Karabiner app and select Show Package Contents. Navigate down to Resources—Include—checkbox and find the file(s) which are named after the expandable section(s) in Karabiner preferences which contain the closest examples of what you hope to accomplish. Open those XML files, and then in Karabiner preferences on the Misc & Uninstall tab, there is a button to open "Private XML"; click that. A text editor like Sublime or TextWrangler that has syntax support for developers including XML will be helpful in editing the Private.xml while preventing syntax errors.
Basically it's a copy & paste operation. Copy the closest premade config and then paste or edit it to your needs. You'll still have to consult the support files on their website; but it's a lot quicker if you have something to start with, or if you can just "Frankenstein" something together.
I use this tool extensively, it's very powerful and reliable; and not to complicated. And it can do virtually anything!
You proabably won't even need to modify the keyboard layout to prevent the dead action, although if you do need to do that in Ukelele. Find the dead key you want to get rid of (or move to a different "modifier group" and make a note of the name of the "deadkey state" (by opening the "Info" window and click on the middle tab—that information will be show there when you hover over the key). To make it into a regular key, right click the deadkey and select "Make output..." type whatever you want for the key output when you press it.
If you want the dead key only to work with the Command key, you'll have to create a new modifier layer. Normally the command key shares the mapping of the keyboard without any other modifiers, but not always— (to get to the modifier layers, click the modifiers tab in the main window with the virtual keyboard; by the way you'll have to open a copy of the keyboard you want to edit from within Ukelele, it can duplicate any active keyboard; that's the easiest way.) Find the layer that is activated by the Command key— layers can sometimes be activated by multiple sets of modifiers. Click the + to add a new modifier layer, create a new layer but choose to duplicate the mapping of the current/active layer, Select the appropriate modifiers that will activate the layer. Now make sure the original layer will no longer be activated by Command (edit it and remove the Command modifier).
In your new modifier set/layer find the key where you want to put that deadkey and right click and choose Make deadkey. Now find the name of the state (often just numbers) that you noted earlier and select that. You will automatically enter that state. Just click the button to Leave deadkey state above the virtual keyboard. Now you can save the layout, and install it to test...
Hope that is helpful if you haven't already figured it all out.
Another extremely powerful and flexible software tool you may be interested in is called "ControllerMate" by OrderedBytes. It isn't free but considering what it can do I've found it well worth the cost which is $25 (including free updates). However, it is more geared to customizing various different devices individually, and custom keyboards or unusual input devices; it can even take a MIDI (musical instrument controller) and translate the signals into commands sequences or entering blocks of text or whatever you can imagine by pressing the keys, buttons or manipulating the knobs, sliders, etc...
Good luck and enjoy!
On Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 6:02:28 AM UTC-4, Geke wrote:
Hi Holger,Keyboard layouts have a limited syntax.–Changing a dead key into a regular key is easy.–Using a combination Command+key as a character isn’t recommended and won’t work in all applications. You’ll need to settle for an alternative like Option+key or Shift-Option+key–Your idea about the Enter key sounds too far-fetched, even with the tools mentioned in Ukelele’s manual:
There may be other ways to achieve your goal – if you like, describe your situation and see if someone here gets a bright idea :)Other software, such as Better Touch Tool (https:// www.boastr.net/), Karabiner (formerly KeyRemap4MacBook) (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ or DoubleCommand (http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/), can do this and more.
On 31 May 2018 at 09:23, Sorin Paliga <sorin....@gmail.com> wrote:
No, system keys cannot be changed with UKELELE. System keys may be modified, to a limited extent, in System preferences/keyboard/modifier keys or by dedicated apps like BetterTouchTool or Karabiner (was KeyRemap4MacBook)
On 31 May 2018, at 10:16, Holger Buchholz <hbe...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,I'd like to know whether ukulele is the right tool for my needs. I need to change the enter key to right-control if pressed together with another key, enter only when pressed individually. And I need to change the accent key so that it doesn't act as a dead key if pressed individually, only if pressed in conjunction with e.g. command. As far as I can tell Ukulele would be able to do that but at the moment I'm a little overwhelmed :-)Best,Holger--
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Aural Architect
Jun 2, 2018, 12:03:52 PM6/2/18
to Ukelele Users
If you use Ukelele to modify your keyboard and base it upon the current input source; be sure to give your keyboard different name entirely. It's also probably better to add it to a bundle so that you can assign language, region and script details (other wise it may not save or be activated properly).
You also need to log off or reboot to make sure the new keyboard is loaded properly by the system after installing it in the keyboard layouts folder in the Library folder.
You also need to log off or reboot to make sure the new keyboard is loaded properly by the system after installing it in the keyboard layouts folder in the Library folder.
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