• You are not logged in.

    Colemak Portable

    • Started by AGK
    • 17 Replies:
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    I learned a new method for those who have usb drives, which may not be new to some, but it is to me.

    While installing AutoHotKey, put it in the folder in the thumb drive and then copy paste Colemak.ahk file from the colemak pack into that same folder of the thumb drive, that way you can just drag the Colemak.ahk file into the autohotkey.exe and right away the H in the taskbar will appear, to pause it, right click on H and the "suspend keys", once you are done all you have to do is right click on the H and select exit. voila :)

    Last edited by AGK (15-Feb-2007 18:06:00)
    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: Saguenay Lac St-Jean
    • Registered: 29-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 24

    Cool, thanks, i'll try. Installing normally takes me only 10 seconds but why not!

    TypeFaster is also a portable App for those who do not know!

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    I learned something else, in the autohotkey folder, the only thing that is needed is the autohotkey.exe and Colemak.ahk file. So I deleted all those files and then use the method of dragging the Colemak.ahk to autohotkey.exe.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 1
    • Registered: 17-Nov-2006
    • Posts: 68

    Thanks, AGK! Thanks to you I'm now able to use Colemak while I'm on my school's computer. Well, I'm sure I could've stumbled through it myself, but it's easier if someone has already found the method of doing things.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    you're welcome buddy :). Well I'm officially QWERTY crippled, I can no longer type in that layout since I am extremely slow, thus I must have all methods possible to have colemak available. When I have computers that have disabled usb drives access, I go to https://colemak.com/Converter to use the converter and then paste the text to email, forum, word doc, etc.

    Last edited by AGK (26-Feb-2007 23:45:04)
    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 1
    • Registered: 17-Nov-2006
    • Posts: 68

    Yeah, that's pretty much what I used to do as well, but that was extremely inconvenient. I now simply have the autohotkey.exe and colemak.ahk on my USB stick, and I'm good to go!

    But yeah, if all else fails, I'll be able to use the converter. That's definitely better than nothing.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Okay, could you people tell me more about this? You install autohotkey to your USB stick with the layout script, and then you can just put your USB drive in any computer and run the script to get the layout? Sounds very convenient!

    I'm an AutoIt3 man myself - which of those would be the most convenient to use, I wonder? Shai, you've used AutoIt - what do you think? From a quick glance, it looks like AutoIt would be less suited and more of a hassle since it doesn't have any readymade remapping features, but it does have a tantalizing feature:

    It strikes me that I could in theory do a full remap in a script and then compile that to .exe! So I would only need to keep that .exe on my USB stick and it'd completely take care of business with a double click. Woo!

    Have anyone done that? Is anyone else interested in me doing it? Would someone help make an icon for the program?

    The problem with a compiled program is that people have to trust you not to put in any malicious code in there. But I trust myself! And it'd be up to other people whether they chose to trust me and their virus/malware scanners. The next problem is that my code would be likely to do a few things to tick off malware detectors: Some of them are touchy about any AutoIt code no matter what it is, and after all I'd be scanning for keystrokes which is exactly what those nasty keyloggers do. Maybe nobody would dare use my .exe - but at any rate I'd post the script code and they could read it and compile it if they were suspicious.

    [Edit: It turns out that AutoHotkey does have a compile feature. I'm looking into this - looks promising.]

    Last edited by DreymaR (06-Mar-2007 11:45:01)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    Golden_Hammer, you can even rename autohotkey.exe to colemak.exe and that way both, .exe and .ahk files will be automatically next to each other... see my screenshot of it, i took it while dragging the .ahk to .exe

    colemakporttf6.jpg

    DreymaR, you can just copy the .exe file, no need for the other files, unless you want to do some modifications to the .ahk file. Also, you can open the colemak.ahk file through notepad or wordpad and edit the keys that you want. for more info on that, autohotkey comes with help and instructions.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Haha, I'm already getting busy fiddling with AutoHotkey and it's a nice program!

    Look what I did to Jon's script: http://folk.uio.no/obech/Files/Keyboard … Screen.zip
    This should be useful for some people trying to learn Colemak? (Shai, feel free to grab a copy and put it up for download if you want. The copyrights are in there, but mention Jon.)

    [Edit, 070306: Still working with Autohotkey. Implemented dead keys, and looking for more. Stay tuned, it could get interesting!]

    [Edit 2, 070312: Damn, I've hit limitations. 1) Scripts have to be saved as ANSI text it seems - this rules out some special characters like h-bar. 2) Seems that AHK is also quite picky as to what may be hotkeyed and used as button text. The ColemakOnScreen will probably end up catering for one Shift state only then - which is a pity, because it's with the weird and wonderful AltGr keys such a utility really shines even for those who have used the layout a little. I'm going to try a different approach.]

    Last edited by DreymaR (12-Mar-2007 18:31:29)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    oh cool....that's a nice onscreen keyboard :)

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • Registered: 12-Nov-2006
    • Posts: 13

    Thanks AGK!  Knowing that I can use Colemak on another computer (work, school) without having to install anything makes me feel a lot better about my decision to learn Colemak.

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: Saguenay Lac St-Jean
    • Registered: 29-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 24

    Here's some more things you can do :

    1. The shortcut.

    Instead of dragging the file to autohotkey.exe, just use a shortcut this way :
    F:\Colemak\AutoHotkey.exe Colemak.ahk

    2. Autorun Colemak

    When you'll plug your pen drive, The shortcut will be executed.

    You can use the Pstart app to do that (a software i recommend to every usb drive user)
    http://www.pegtop.net/start/

    Or you can create an autorun.inf file (like a CD), that you place on your flash drive root folder.

    A autorun.inf looks like this :

    [autorun]
    OPEN=PStart.exe
    ICON=PStart.exe
    ACTION = Usb-Menu

    From there my pstart executes my shortcut. But you could just call the shortcut directly :

    [autorun]
    OPEN=Colemak\Raccourci vers AutoHotkey.exe.lnk

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104

    oh that's even better, thanks ChaperonNoir :)

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    I'm really puzzled at this Autorun thing. It works like a charm at my home (XP SP2) PC, but not at all at my work (XP SP2) PC! I can set AutoPlay options on the stick at work, but I don't get the menu even if all content types are set to ask! The disk doesn't change icon either, so I know it isn't running the Autorun.inf at all (I think).

    I have local admin rights on my work PC, so I started digging in MS help files and found several promising candidates - none of which worked for me:
    - MS and others say: "Autorun.inf is not supported under WinXP for drives with DriveType DRIVE_REMOVABLE." But why, then, is it working at my home PC (and for you guys)? My work machine may be slightly more updated and there may be a recent MS patch that messes with autorun because of the malware possibilities, but that sounds a bit unlikely.
    - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun can adjust which kinds of drives are allowed to use Autorun.inf; no success.
    - A disk's settings in the registry can enable some kinds of autoplay performance. I even tried uninstalling the disk's driver and reinstalling it, but no change. (Maybe some settings weren't cleaned out in the registry when I uninstalled the USB disk, though?)

    This is odd.

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: Hungary, Budapest
    • Registered: 21-Oct-2007
    • Posts: 23

    Try my Portable Keyboard Layout program with Colemak support!
    https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=345

    Portable Keyboard Layout with Colemak support
    http://pkl.sourceforge.net/

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 0
    • From: NYC
    • Registered: 02-Feb-2007
    • Posts: 104
    fmate14 said:

    Try my Portable Keyboard Layout program with Colemak support!
    https://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=345

    it's great...thanks :)

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    To be precise, AGK actually quoted fmate14 whose program this really is. Farkas Máté is his real name and PKL's main pages are at the AutoHotkey forums (and at SourceForge); there's a mention of it at the PortableApps site but that one isn't supported I think.

    Last edited by DreymaR (03-Aug-2010 13:18:36)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

    Offline
    • 0
    • Reputation: 210
    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
    • Posts: 5,343

    Hye There Spammy Please Die Die Die Now Thank You Very Much

    :)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

    Offline
    • 0