Oolite Bulletins

Welcome to the most friendly (this side of Riedquat at least) boards!

GrinNoCat wrote:

Ok, I have looked through the forums and done a number of searches and I cannot find anyway to map some of the command functions to alternate keys so I am asking for help. Yes, I am on a mac and posting in the mac section!

Did you find the Wiki yet? There is lots of useful information there. The section about keyboard controls in the Reference Manual also explains a few things about keycodes. Setup using the numeric keypad should be possible.

GrinNoCat wrote:

I would also like to shift the doc menu keys to their actual F-Key so that they match the graphics

I believe that this depends on your keyboard setup. In your Mac's system preferences you can configure the F-keys to behave like F-keys for applications or to control music, brightness, etc. I have mine setup as controls, so I have to press Fn-F6 instead of F6 if I want to see the map screen.

I seem to remember from other threads that mapping the numeric keypad is not possible. Some keys will be treated as identical to certain keys on the main keyboard, while other keys won't be accessible at all.

However, I could be wrong with that.

One easy test would be to run the keymapper, just press all keys from the numeric pad consecutively for the first actions, and examine the resulting keyconfig.plist. That will tell you the numerical values of the keys you've pressed, and from there you can find out whether there are any numbers which appear on the main board as well.

Commander McLane wrote:

I seem to remember from other threads that mapping the numeric keypad is not possible. Some keys will be treated as identical to certain keys on the main keyboard, while other keys won't be accessible at all.

However, I could be wrong with that.

One easy test would be to run the keymapper, just press all keys from the numeric pad consecutively for the first actions, and examine the resulting keyconfig.plist. That will tell you the numerical values of the keys you've pressed, and from there you can find out whether there are any numbers which appear on the main board as well.

I think this is true Cmdr M because I seem to recall that a screenshot is taken with SHIFT+8 (*) but the '*' on the numeric keyboard doesn't work...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I think this is true Cmdr M because I seem to recall that a screenshot is taken with SHIFT+8 (*) but the '*' on the numeric keyboard doesn't work...

But isn't that because the key mapping works from the physical keyboard layout and not from the logical key assignment? This is actually a question, I really don't know how it works in Oolite...

maik wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I think this is true Cmdr M because I seem to recall that a screenshot is taken with SHIFT+8 (*) but the '*' on the numeric keyboard doesn't work...

But isn't that because the key mapping works from the physical keyboard layout and not from the logical key assignment? This is actually a question, I really don't know how it works in Oolite...

I think keyboard mapping is very complicated - I think your answer is correct, at least in part!

DaddyHoggy wrote:

maik wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I think this is true Cmdr M because I seem to recall that a screenshot is taken with SHIFT+8 (*) but the '*' on the numeric keyboard doesn't work...

But isn't that because the key mapping works from the physical keyboard layout and not from the logical key assignment? This is actually a question, I really don't know how it works in Oolite...

I think keyboard mapping is very complicated - I think your answer is correct, at least in part!

Depending on which part is correct it could mean that you can assign different actions to e.g. shift-8 and keypad-*. And thus also assign other functions to the numeric keypad as requested above... In short: You'll have to try it out, GrinNoCat. And please post your findings.

I tried it before I posted and there is no difference (on the Mac) between 1 and Num 1, the both register the same value and it totally prevents play when you try to map to the num keypad.

Additionally my F keys are set to the normal Mac functions, I have to press Fn to control brightness, and they do not move between areas in the dock. I have to use the number keys across the top.

I had also read the wiki prior to posting and that was part of why I was able to mess around with it so much.

I have a couple of specialized keyboard and keypads, I will do a little more experimenting to see if anything else comes up.

So far though it looks like the only commands that can be mapped are the ones in the plist.

GrinNoCat wrote:

So far though it looks like the only commands that can be mapped are the ones in the plist.

Well, yes. Because the commands in the plist are all the commands which exist in Oolite. There are no others.

What else would you want to map in Oolite anyway?

As I said in previous posts, it may be beneficial to map forward, left, right and rear views to other keys, etc.

GrinNoCat wrote:

As I said in previous posts, it may be beneficial to map forward, left, right and rear views to other keys, etc.

Ah, okay; hadn't seen that.

No, AFAIK those are hardcoded to the number keys (note: we usually refer to them as if they were function keys, e.g. the market is referred to as F8, although in reality it is simply 8 ) and cannot be changed.

EDIT: corrected false emoticon into a number eight and a closing parenthesis ( auto-emoticons)

Commander McLane wrote:

GrinNoCat wrote:

As I said in previous posts, it may be beneficial to map forward, left, right and rear views to other keys, etc.

Ah, okay; hadn't seen that.

No, AFAIK those are hardcoded to the number keys (note: we usually refer to them as if they were function keys, e.g. the market is referred to as F8, although in reality it is simply and cannot be changed.

Damn those emoticons eh?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Damn those emoticons eh?

Do you mean the 8 ?

Cmdr M tried to do an 8 followed by a ) and of course 8 + ) =

That's one of the reasons I have 'smilies' disabled.

Thanks guys. Some of us just want our cake and to eat it too - we should just be happy to be able to play. At least we can do something instead of sitting around and reminiscing about the good old days!