Problem using Ukelele made keyboard and arrow keys with Excel for Mac

[Fernando Madruga]

I physically re-arranged some keys on my MBP so as to more closely
match my PC's keyboard (yes, I know, but I'm used to that layout and
have to keep switching so it's a lot easier to touch type that way!)

Basically, I started from the current keyboard and simply made a few
Swap Keys.

It works *almost* fine, and in fact, works just great in just about
every app... except for Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011 (w/ SP1, if that
makes a difference); on this particular app, I can't get the arrow
keys to work; enter also exhibits a strange behaviour and even
backspace does not work either, effectively rendering my custom
keyboard useless on this app.

Note: the keys I re-arranged were only alpha keys, namely, the ± §, \
|, º ª and + *

If I switch to the "original" keyboard, all works fine (except I get
the "old" keys that don't map to my physical ones); if I switch back
to the Ukelele made keyboard, all alpha/digits work fine, including
the remapped ones, and the arrows/backspace/enter keys work fine in
*other* apps but Excel.

Is there any way around this? I didn't touch anything else while
making the keyboard layout, and in fact, I started over just to make
sure I hadn't.

Thanks,
Madruga

[John Brownie]

Rearranging non-alphanumeric keys is not guaranteed to work. I created a simple keyboard layout which swapped some alphabetic keys with the arrow keys and submitted it to Apple as a bug that it didn't work, and the bug was closed as "works correctly". So all I can say is that it will work haphazardly, and you're lucky that it works in most applications. Sorry!

John

-- 

John Brownie, john_b...@sil.org or j.br...@sil.org.pg

On furlough in Australia from:

Summer Institute of Linguistics      | Mussau-Emira language, Mussau Is.

Ukarumpa, Eastern Highlands Province | New Ireland Province

Papua New Guinea                     | Papua New Guinea

[Fernando Madruga]

Maybe I didn't explain properly, sorry.

Let me try again: the *only* keys I swapped were those 4 which are
basically ´`+*ºª§±\| (now that I counted, makes 5!)

I *did not* change any other key, not the arrow, nor the backspace,
nor enter keys.

It works fine except in Excel which does not accept the arrows/
backspace/enter keys, which I *did not* change!

I just downloaded Numbers'09 trial and it works great there (numbers
also looks kind of cooler than excel for some tasks), but I'm not sure
yet if I'll be buying it.

If you have any suggestion of something I can try to "fix" this just
let me know. If you need the updated keyboard, also feel free to ask
and I'll send it as well.

Thank you,
Madruga

On Mar 27, 11:20 pm, John Brownie <john_brow...@sil.org> wrote:
> Rearranging non-alphanumeric keys is not guaranteed to work. I created a
> simple keyboard layout which swapped some alphabetic keys with the arrow
> keys and submitted it to Apple as a bug that it didn't work, and the bug
> was closed as "works correctly". So all I can say is that it will work
> haphazardly, and you're lucky that it works in most applications. Sorry!
>
> John
> --

> John Brownie, john_brow...@sil.org or j.brow...@sil.org.pg

[John Brownie]

OK, sorry for the misunderstanding.

What was the basic keyboard layout that you started with? It shouldn't matter, but maybe it does. It doesn't look like a US or similar keyboard layout — I'd guess it's a European language with an ISO layout, given the presence of § in your list.

If you want to send me the keyboard layout (directly, not on the list), I can try it out on my machine. However, it does sound like the problem is with Excel rather than the keyboard layout, but I can't be sure of that.

John

-- 

John Brownie, john_b...@sil.org or j.br...@sil.org.pg

[John Brownie]

The solution was found to this problem. The keyboard layout's script was correctly set to Unicode, but the ID was not valid for Unicode — it was positive, and Unicode keyboard layouts should have a negative ID. Correcting the ID appears to have fixed the problem. I will update the manual to suggest this in the trouble-shooting section.