Mac Keyboard Layout

[Eric Walch]

Things become even more interesting on non us keyboards, like the french (azerty) keyboard. I think you than want to change the layout completely and a tool to edit the keyconfig.plist might get more useful than for US/UK/Dutch keyboards.



e.g. I see that the S is now above the W key.

[Commander McLane]

But that's a Windows keyboard. Gimi is looking for an Apple keyboard layout.

[Eric Walch]

But that's a Windows keyboard. Gimi is looking for an Apple keyboard layout.

Was just to show how different keyboards could be within one os.

For a current mac-international one see below:



You see that there are special symbols on the function keys. In the settings you choose that they react as function keys or use the functions defined by those symbols (like I have) the use in combination with the 'fn' key takes the other function of the key..

EDIT. On my keyboard is the 'fn' key on the numeric block. I have no idea how you do it on that keyboard. Above picture is the exact keyboard that shipped with the computer I am typing now. However, it came never out of the box as I still use the keyboard of my previous computer that had the numeric block.

[Commander McLane]

As I'm on a laptop, my keyboard has the 'fn'-key to the left of the left 'ctrl'-key ('fn', 'ctrl', and 'alt' are also smaller, in order to fit three keys in the space of your two). There is no right 'ctrl', instead I have the arrow keys. And 'F5' and 'F6' are used to control the keyboard background lighting. Other than that—and of course the country specifics—the overall look is the same.

[maik]

You can completely disregard the function keys. They're not used in Oolite at all. Each time we're writing about 'F5' for instance, what we actually press is '5', the number key one row below the function keys.

Only one keypress required on PC's as well, but the "1" key and the "F1" does exactly the same thing, e.g. duplicated functionality. I take it that the function keys are not used at all by Oolite on Mac. If that is the case, a note should be made of that on the Oolite Reference Sheet.

No, the function keys work just fine on the Mac version. Like the PC, the number keys and the function keys do exactly the same things.

It is actually configurable in the System Preferences how you want your function keys to work: either as F1, F2, etc. (then you need to hold Fn together with them to adjust brightness etc.), or as brightness adjust, volume adjust, etc. (then you need to hold Fn to get F1, F2, etc. functionality).

Since mine are used for adjustments etc. I do as Commander McLane does: press 1 instead of F1, 2 instead of F2 etc.

[Gimi]

For a current mac-international one see below:

Thank you Erik but this is very frustrating actually. The layout in the picture you gave me above has no arrow keys, and it's different from the Apple wireless keyboards you linked to earlier. Why on earth does Apple change the layout all the time, and it's not just cosmetic. They move the keys around. I thought this was going to be easy, one brand and all. My aim was to use something representative that most Mac users could relate to. I'm probably even more confused now. I have a picture of what is supposedly the standard full size keyboard, and that is all done, but I have found some more variations this evening. Anyway, I'll find a picture of a Apple Macbook Pro, and use that for the smaller laptop type keyboard. Then I'll post it and ask for inputs. Hopefully done this weekend if wife time allows.

[Svengali]

Yep, keyboard layouts are a funny and painful thing .-)

If it helps you I can send you the link for the current status of the tool.
The input of Micha, Eric, PhantorGorth and El Viejo was pretty cool and has improved it so much. It is already in a usable state and might give you a better overview, but there's still some work to do.

[Gimi]

Yep, keyboard layouts are a funny and painful thing .-)

If it helps you I can send you the link for the current status of the tool.
The input of Micha, Eric, PhantorGorth and El Viejo was pretty cool and has improved it so much. It is already in a usable state and might give you a better overview, but there's still some work to do.

Thank you very much for your offer, but I don't think I need it for this. (I'm waiting in anticipation for your release though). I'm really just making a pretty picture. (See here).
It's meant as a supplement to the documentation that comes with the core game for the player to print and reference while he/she learns the controls. I think you have set your sights a little higher.

[Eric Walch]

For a current mac-international one see below:

Thank you Erik but this is very frustrating actually. The layout in the picture you gave me above has no arrow keys, and it's different from the Apple wireless keyboards you linked to earlier.

That picture came from the first google search for a "mac international keyboard". It was so much a photo from my keyboard that I didn't thought it could be incomplete. Comparing with my 1.5 years old keyboard that has a numeric bloc, it seems to be a picture of that keyboard were the right part is removed. Explains also the missing 'fn' key. Strange I didn't notice the missing cursors.

The correct one should be:



This one I now compared key-by-key with the unused one from my box, and they are identical. Compared with my above picture, only the bottom row is different because they had to squeeze in the 'fn' key and the cursor keys that are otherwise next to the numeric block on the extended keyboard.

It was just frustrating for me, that when I last week searched for this keyboard layout on the mac site itself, were they sell all the keyboards, they all had a layout that I never witnessed on a mac keyboard. Specific the ' key between the 'Shift' and 'z' were missing. But the fact apple has a picture from such a keyboard on their site means that such layouts also exist. Maybe they created it to please widow users that switched to a mac?

[Eric Walch]

I now found a complete overview of the different localised Mac keyboard layouts on the support part of the apple site. I juts add the link here for future reference. It shows for each localisation both the version with as without numeric block.

Among others it shows that there is a clear difference between English-British, English-International and English-US.

[Commander McLane]

Gimi is also right that there has been a considerable development over time. For instance there used to be an 'Enter' key, which was different from the 'Return' key. It was located in the bottom row, second to right from 'Space', and was still present on the first generation MacBook keyboard. It's only gone in recent MacBook generations, giving way to the right 'alt' key.

[Gimi]

Thank you for all your help. I find it interesting that this last layout that Eric has linked to at the Apple support site actually differs from the Apple wireless keyboard that Apple sells in their Apple store.
Anyway, as this version seems to be sort of official, I'll use the International English version with the two row enter button for both the laptop and full size version.

I'm amazed at how many versions Apple have made. I thought that the Mac would be the easy one.

[JensAyton]

It was just frustrating for me, that when I last week searched for this keyboard layout on the mac site itself, were they sell all the keyboards, they all had a layout that I never witnessed on a mac keyboard. Specific the ' key between the 'Shift' and 'z' were missing.

US keyboards don’t have that key. (Actually, they have that key next to the 1 key, and no § key.) The return and \ keys are also arranged differently. This is standard and applies to non-Apple keyboards too.

[Eric Walch]

I found another nice keyboard for the mac. Some keys are sacrificed to create a docking station for the i-Phone. And some others like the delete-key are added to the bottom row.



Made by the Canadian firm one keyboards