OK, I tried to make the enter key a Caps Lock key using fKeys but found the things I tried didn't work so it doesn't appear to be trivial. I probably will still find the time to ask the author about that. But for now I am happy with an easy solution that any many ways makes more sense. I am using the sticky keys option on the OS X universal access pane. So far I am wondering why this is not the default behavior for shift keys on computers! The following is not for people that know but for those who stumble on this and need a quick and easy .
Okay, my final solution on my Macbook running Tiger (OS X 10.4.8) is the following and it works great.
1. go to https://colemak.com/Mac and download and install Colemak.layout
(read Shai's warnings - however in Tiger my experience is that the authetication windows and login windows always default to Qwerty layout no matter what I do. On my powerbook that is running Panther (OS X 10.3.9) that is not the case for the authentication windows - they do become Colemak layout by default however it is trivial to change back on the fly if you have turned on the "Show input menu in the menu bar" International preference pane. The login window remains Qwerty in Panther.)
2. download fKeys beta 0.2.1 and install, readme file
3. download the macbook config files from the same beta page and modify them using some cut and paste magic with the Colemak example in the kinesis keyboard config files. Its pretty trivial to do as long as you are careful. OR you can email me and I will send what I have done. It still has the config for the powerbook keyboards and when I upgrade my powerbook to Tiger soon I will test it there to be sure. I have in mind to put up a Colemak for the mac page to put up the files to download.
4. HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT TOO! :-)
get a caps lock back by turning on sticky keys in the accessibilily preference pane
see here http://www.apple.com/accessibility/physical/
Actually, this is great and in many ways is more functional than the standard Caps Lock key.
I have decided this is better than dedicating another key to caps lock. All the shift functionality in one key does make a lot
more sense. Why is this not standard behavior? It would be nice I suppose if if you could just make the shift keys sticky
only. I wonder if that can be done with fKeys?
Note: I would turn off the beep but the display option is kind of nice for sticky keys.
all this may be obvious to some, but it wasn't to me so I hope its useful to anyone looking at Colemak on a mac.
Craig
Last edited by keyboard samurai (16-Feb-2007 19:58:22)