I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but when I press the right alt key and then 't' to produce the accent dead key, the cursor is moved to the Google search bar in the sidebar, and anything I type afterward is searched for. (Did that make sense?) Anyway, I was wondering if I could either disable hotkeys for the sidebar, or if there was some workaround using AutoHotKeys.
Thanks in advance!
I can only imagine that your sidebar or system interprets the RAlt as a normal Alt in addition to the AltGr function. Maybe the Google bar uses a low-level hook or something.
My solution is to not use a sidebar. ;) Okay, that won't fit the bill for everyone.
As you say, AHK could probably fix this - as a separate script if you aren't running Portable Keyboard Layout to get Colemak... but if you are then it'll get tricky because you'd have to recompile PKL with the script inside. You'd want a small script that catches RAlt and only sends a proper AltGr on (something along the lines of ' >! :: <^>! ' is supposed to work but I wouldn't be too sure).
Another suggestion I can think of would be to registry remap whatever your RAlt is sending now to a proper AltGr scan code (probably #e038). That's the lowest level you can access I think so it ought to get the Google bar.
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I found that AltGr continued to function as just plain Alt in browsers on Windows. However Ctrl+AltGr worked correctly as the Colemak AltGr.
The problem with Google Desktop is usually with AltGr+G, not with AltGr+T. The AltGr+T might be used by another application . See How to disable Google Desktop shortcuts. The Colemak Windows download includes a file "i386\Disable Google Desktop AltGr-G shortcut.reg" to help change that registry setting.
...Okay, so I'm totally stupid. Turns out that I have residual QWERTY memory and was hitting QWERTY "T" instead of Colemak "T", which is Colemak "G". The accents work wonderfully. BUT, if I do want to disable the hotkeys, I now know how! Thanks for all your help. :D
I found that AltGr continued to function as just plain Alt in browsers on Windows. However Ctrl+AltGr worked correctly as the Colemak AltGr.
I'm having the same problem with PKL on Windows: AltGr works correctly for keys that produce either plain ASCII characters or dead keys (like AltGr-T for dead acute), but not for keys that produce "special" characters (like é, €, ...). For those, only AltGr+Ctrl works.
Exceptions:
The AltGr key works correctly if the "underlying" Windows layout supports an AltGr key (default US doesn't).
It also works correctly with PKL's non-ascii mode "c" (copy the character to the clipboard then paste it).
I don't like these workaround though. Does anyone have PKL behaving correctly wrt. AltGr in a default way?
I think your PKL .ini may need a reworking. Sounds like it's not the dead keys (in the main .ini file) but the key defs (in the layout .ini file) that are wonky. Try checking out that all your VKEY_ numbers are correct; they do vary between national layouts. [Let me know if you're having any trouble finding out your VKEY codes - but you're such a whiz it'd surprise me. :) ]
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[On Windows I'm no whiz at all - but this is at work where I can't use anything else]
I'm not using any national layout, just the default US layout. My keyboard is a plain 101-key US keyboard with an AltGr key.
I doubt the problem is in the layout file itself. If I change eg. the "€" character in the layout.ini into a plain ascii character eg. "e", AltGr+5 produces that character correctly. Also if I put the "€" character on a normal or shifted key, it works correctly. Only for non-ASCII characters on AltGr-keys there is a problem, and I have to use Ctrl+AltGr (that is right Alt, Ctrl + Left Alt doesn't work until I enable that option in pkl.ini - so there is "awareness" of the AltGr key).
Also, the problem is there in most apps, but not in eg. my VNC client. Very strange...
I think it's rather a problem in PKL's non-ascii character insertion method... Changing that to "c" (in nonascii.ini) works (copy the character to the clipboard, paste it, then restore previous clipboard contents), but that has other drawbacks.
Ugh. Tomlu and I have been looking into a novel way of inserting those chars (based on the MSWin API .dll functions) but thus far we've drawn a blank. Not sure what to do for you right now.
You could make a US layout that supports AltGr using MSKLC and install that if you're allowed to. Not sure whether you'd like that workaround or not.
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