Free Keyboard Remapping Software

For a long time I have been meaning to include this nifty tool on my website for people to download but never got round to doing it till right now.

What pushed me? I was reading someone's blog on how Dvorak is better than Qwerty and I was reading the comments where someone mentioned the Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V shortcuts.

I also use Dvorak and, yes with the dvorak layout these shortcuts are more difficult to use.

But when I switched to Dvorak I bought myself a nice Microsoft ergonomic 4000 keyboard and it has 2 nice buttons right up front which I remapped to copy and paste respectively so I can now perform the operation in a fraction of the time as I just click a button to copy and one to paste. (update about this keyboard at the bottom of the page)

Which brings me to this piece of software.

I had thought: "why not remap the right Alt key to Enter so I can hit it with my thumb instead of reaching out with the little finger?

And the backspace is also very far for the little finger so I could have the silly right hand Win key to act as Backspace?? Is that possible?"

Yes, it is. I searched the net and tested all kind of software for a few weeks and eventually I found this little gem that's

1 very intuitive to use

2 Free

3 Can be redistribuited

So here it is :) Download Keyboard Remapping Software

Btw, after much testing I found the Right Ctrl key works better as a Delete Key too! Enjoy.

UPDATE:

Autohotkey is also a good tool. Free.

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This is about the sensitivity issues on the  Microsoft 4000 keyboard. The keys never had a very good feel on this keyboard.

They seem too springy, they require quite a bit to press down, they have too much travel and they come up without any damping, just like a car's shock absorbers when they are shot.. and if that wasn't enough, since I purchased it, the C key never worked too well.

It requires pressing it down a bit more than the other keys, right till the end. This is the i key on Querty.

I dealt with it till now, when the L key started doing the same thing. That's the P on Querty.

I could handle one key but two?

So I searched the net and found that some people had the same problem and just sent it back. I have all sorts of keyboards but I like this one I use this the most so what to do, buy another?

I solved it by levering the key out with a screwdriver and inserting some cardboard in the hollow tube that's behind the key.

It now takes  a *very* soft touch to get those two keys to work, I might experiment by having a small tube of rubber in there and when found what works best I  might do this to all keys in order to limit their travel.

I am now not afraid of hitting that C  or L key, they are the best keys I have till I hack the rest of them!

Btw, HERE (that link is now dead, but read on) is a post on how to get the zoom slider to scroll. I actually have it to select all & cut (only for when using firefox).

Ok the link with the tutorial on how to change behaviour for the zoom slider seems to be having problems to show but I won't take it down because it might be a temporary issue.. instead, I searched the web archive and I was lucky enough to find the page spidered, my comment was the last one on the page, too maybe I caused the spidering to re-happen! Whatever, the link to the article at the web archive is this.

Last but not least, please bookmark my page, or pass the link on via facebook.. just like you found the software useful, maybe someone else will need it too.

25 November 2011 Update: I have just come across a nice keyboard from Microsoft, it's for gaming but it also has some functions that can be useful for everyone, for instance it can record keystroke sequences, you can see it here