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From: jxf@altair.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Solution: swapping keys on extended keyboard
Message-ID: <1991Jan4.064141.19223@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Date: 4 Jan 91 06:41:41 GMT
References: <1991Jan3.084459.24275@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> <1991Jan4.041359.848@eng.umd.edu>
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Organization: Kansas State University
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russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:

>In article <1991Jan3.084459.24275@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> jxf@altair.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) writes:
>>
>>A while back I posted a request for help swapping the control key
>>and caps lock key on the Apple extended keyboard.
>>
>>I didn't receive any replies on how to _logically_ swap the keys
>>(I did receive one very helpful reply on how to physically swap the
>>lock-down mechanism)

>Say, could you post that in comp.sys.mac.hardware????

Sure thing, I'll take care of that as soon as I finish this follow-up.

[ I (logically) swapped the keys by swapping virtual keycodes in KMAP ]

>[the hard way of using ResEdit to do it omitted].

Not really hard, only about 20 seconds of my time once I figured out
what I wanted to change was in KMAP.

>Hate to tell you this, but ResEdit 2.0 has a KCHR editor that would have
>allowed you to do so in a much more intuitive way.

Um, maybe, but it wasn't to my satisfaction.  As I understand it, KCHR is
a table for mapping virtual keycodes to the ascii values.  I, however,
modified the KMAP resource which interprets the raw keycodes to virtual
keycodes.

IMHO, Apple screwed up by placing the caps lock and control key where
they are (were :-) on the extended keyboard.  I permanently modified
the keyboard, and modifying the virtual keycodes comes as close as I
can (without some fancy hardware work) to permanently modifying the
key mapping.

Now, when I use ResEdit to look at the KCHR resource, I press the control
key and ResEdit highlights *the caps lock key*.  Neato, eh?  Hence, I went
one level lower in the key mappings than KCHR lets me go, and that's right
where I wanted my key mapping -- as close to the hardware as possible.

Cheers,

  --Jerry

--
Jerry Frain -- Systems Programmer               Kansas State University
                                        Department of Computing & Info Sciences
Internet : jxf@cis.ksu.edu                         Manhattan, Kansas
UUCP     : ...!rutgers!ksuvax1!jxf