Please make AZXCV mapping optional!

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by luz, Dec 3, 2006.

  1. luz

    luz Member

    Messages:
    87
    Thanks for all the great improvements in the new beta! :)

    However, the AZXCV remapping is a complete show stopper for me :( . I'll have to go back to 1970 if I find no way to disable it.

    Please make it an option I can switch off!

    Ironically, the reason why it completely breaks my working environment is because tries to provide a half-way solution for something I have solved many years ago already.

    Of course, having Ctrl-AZXCV in WIndows and Apple-AZXCV in Mac OS X is annoying. But even worse is having Apple-AZXCV in Windows now, but not Apple-S,W,E,F and many many others. As said, I solved the problem long time ago, when I started using both Mac and Win with a KVM switch trough the same keyboard. I just exchanged mapping of Ctrl and Win/Apple keys. This gave me a consistent behaviour for all shortcuts.

    Please Parallels: I love your application, but most of the well-meant, but force-fed (no option to turn them off) "enhancements" related to the keyboard are really seriously annoying.

    It seems to me that you fail to recognize that the keyboard is a very sensitive area of UI as most of a user's training is invested here. It takes weeks and hundreds of mistyped keys to adapt to changes in a keyboard layout.

    I hate to repeat myself, but apparently I need to - your ideas for improvement are great, but please always make them configurable from day one (an be it only through console and .keyboard_config). It will save users a lot of annoyance with your great product, and will save you a lot of support traffic.
     
  2. Olivier

    Olivier Forum Maven

    Messages:
    610
    Call me lucky or unlucky, I don't know, but on my configuration I don't see this AZXCV remapping at all. I didn't see any change in behaviour from build 1970 (regarding the keyboard). So maybe there is a way to switch it off (and it is switched off on my config then), or a bug which prevents it to work here, but then that is a good bug ;-)
     
  3. akac

    akac Hunter

    Messages:
    144
    Same here - I see no changes in my 3036 build.
     
  4. luz

    luz Member

    Messages:
    87
    Thanks for this information. However, the changes are subtle - 3036 just converts (for example) Apple-C to Ctrl-C in Windows (but passes Ctrl-C on as Ctrl-C in Windows as well).

    So if you don't need Apple-AZXCV to be passed on as Windowskey-AZXCV (as I do, and as 1970 provides), you won't probably notice the change.

    What happens in your installation if you press Apple-AZXCV?
     
  5. KBrack

    KBrack Junior Member

    Messages:
    10
    I really like the idea of the built-in keyboard mapping, but I'm really missing the Cmd-S.

    I've been using an app called Trade-Keys to remap the Cmd and Cntl keys on Windows machines for several years and in Parallels since it's release. However, the keyboard mapping in the new version breaks Trade-Keys. I'd like to be able to turn off the built-in mapping so I can continue to use Trade-Keys or to configure the list of built-in remapped keys to include Cmd-S.

    Any chance that the hidden Parallels keyboard config file that you access via the terminal is the key to doing either of these things?

    Thanks
     
  6. jgspda

    jgspda Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    I agree. I think that ANY/ALL keyboard "re-maps" should NOT be hard-set, but rather optional.

    Because the various differences between a Macbook keyboard and a PC/Laptop keyboard, people will have various preferences to how their keyboard is remapped.

    For example, the keyboard re-maps I've used in both Parallels and Boot Camp on the Macbook Pro are:

    1. Left Command = Alt. I do this because it's normally where the Windows ALT key is, and I can't seem to "retrain" myself after years of thinking the ALT key is in that location.

    2. Right Command = Right Windows. This seems to set to the Applications key by default (or, "Menu" key), with certain revs of Boot Camp, and with Parallels. I never had a use for the App key, so I remapped this to get a Windows key back.

    3. Num-Enter = Delete. I couldn't stand not having a separate "Delete" key (outside of "FN Backspace"), and this was the only key on the MBP that I didn't have a use for.

    This all works fine under Boot camp. However, under Parallels, there are Command key combos within the application I'd like to disable (like Command-N for new, etc.). These cause a conflict with menu options. For example, if a menu hotkey on an application is "ALT N", this initiates a new Parallels window, rather than initiating the menu on the app.

    With the beta, we have all of the select/copy/paste hotkeys as well that override any keyboard remaps of the Windows Operating System. While I see the value of this functionality, it seems more of a user preference.

    Maybe there is a way to disable it. Let me know if I'm missing something.

    Thanks.
     
  7. luz

    luz Member

    Messages:
    87
    I hoped so, and searched in the Parallels app code for the other options in that file. But it seems that the only options supported in /Library/Parallels/.keyboard_config are numenterisaltgr, nonumenterisaltgr, swaprightaltcmd and noswaprightaltcmd :(
     

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