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    Problem with Colemak under MacOS X

    • Started by heron
    • 4 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: San Francisco
    • Registered: 12-Jan-2007
    • Posts: 5

    Hi,

    Colemak worked great for me under Windows. I recently switched to a MacBook and installed the layout which basically ran without a hitch. Until I started Eclipse. Under Eclipse it seems that all the Command keys have the original keyboard mapping. This is easily verifiable if you go to the shortcuts menu (easy shortcut to get there: command-shift-L 2x) (btw if it's wrong then it's command-shift-I 2x). Could anyone please verify this behaviour?

    What I investigated so far:
    * Eclipse is not a Cocoa App. Don't know if that is a problem though.
    * With browsing the xml source and using Ukelele, I could not find any reasons why it wouldn't work.

    Any pointers greatly appreciated.

    Cheers,
    -Daniel

    Last edited by heron (03-May-2008 07:34:00)
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    • From: Switzerland
    • Registered: 21-Aug-2007
    • Posts: 176

    I'm afraid I can confirm this. I'm a software developer and use Eclipse 3.3.x with Java 6 in Mac OS X 10.5.x.

    As a (hopefully temporary) workaround I eventually reconfigured some keys (the ones I use frequently) to work as expected in Colemak, that is define them with the QWERTY layout in mind. :-/
    E.g. I often use the "Open resource" command (Command + Shift + R), which I had to redefine as Command + Shift + S (as the QWERTY S position corresponds to Colemak R position). Of course other shortcuts had to be redefined as well (e.g. Command + Shift + S is used for something else already), which is kind of a PITA.
    Another thing I absolutely had to reconfigure was Command + S (save), which due to this bug produced a Command + D (delete line).

    Added:
    I just tried it again and found out that it works just fine with the Dvorak layout that comes standard with OS X (the regular Dvorak, not the Dvorak - Qwerty <Command>). So I assume it might have something to do with the Colemak.keylayout file after all. Unfortunately, the pre-installed keyboard layouts don't come in *.keylayout files - instead, they appear to be two binary files in

    /System/Library/Keyboard Layouts/AppleKeyboardLayouts.bundle/Contents

    - so there's no comparing Colemak.keylayout to another *.keylayout... :(

    Last edited by boli (03-May-2008 12:42:51)
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    • From: San Francisco
    • Registered: 12-Jan-2007
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    Ok, I dug yesterday late somewhat more into what did could be, because for me it's an absolute showstopper, and I need to get it to work soon.

    Fact: Eclipse is still a carbon app, although the next release might change that.
    http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/dow … html#swt-4

    Guess: There seem to be solid issues with nonstandard keyboards and carbon apps. Following are a couple of resources I have found so far that touch the issue.
    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php? … 8131542947
    http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/archiv … 25294.html (check the whole thread)
    http://www.riverdark.net/board/index.php?showtopic=551

    Currently it looks to me that to solve the problem one has to somehow rebind oldstyle darwin keyboard mappings so they get picked up by carbon.

    Any additional pointers welcome.

    -Daniel

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    • Registered: 27-Sep-2008
    • Posts: 3

    On Leopard 10.5.5 when using Microsoft Office and BBEdit (all Carbon apps), keyboard shortcuts in Colemak seem to work fine. Perhaps Apple have fixed this particular issue.

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    • Registered: 25-May-2008
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    Key Remap 4 Macbook now has an option to for Colemak, and setting up Colemak this way works correctly with Carbon.  It's also easier than the current instructions for installing Colemak and offers a lot of other interesting options.
    http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyre … index.html

    Install it with PCKeyboardHack, from the same company, to map Caps Lock to backspace.
    http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/macosx/keyre … extra.html

    I've been using this for awhile.  It's good.

    -Gabe

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