keyboard reassignment ?

I did some searches but coming up empty...

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology but I essentially want to change the numeric keypad portion of the keyboard.

So, for example, when I hit the number "4" the keyboard would read it as an "x".

Thanks for your help.

Mateo Miller said:

I did some searches but coming up empty...

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology but I essentially want to change the numeric keypad portion of the keyboard.

So, for example, when I hit the number "4" the keyboard would read it as an "x".

Click to expand...

You need to change the keymap.

What exactly are you trying to do that you want to alter which key does what?

I'm relatively new to Photoshop & Lightroom.

The short cut keys are largely forgettable (too me) and spread throughout the keyboard.

I was thinking of "remapping" a numeric keypad and relabeling the keys so that the short cut keys more easily accessible.

That way I could keep one hand on the mouse and one hand on the modified keypad.

And yes I have OCD, why do you ask

Photoshop has a keyboard shortcut editor, but it's only for remapping menu commands and tools. If you want to make the keypad enter a different character, you're probably going to have to use a utility of some kind. It's a similar story with Lightroom, though it doesn't even have a keyboard shortcut editor; you can remap keys with a hack but again it's not going to make a 4 type an X. Either way you will need a separate key remapping utility.

Mateo Miller said:

I'm relatively new to Photoshop & Lightroom.

The short cut keys are largely forgettable (too me) and spread throughout the keyboard.

Click to expand...

How about something like this?
http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/photo-app-keyboards/

You should look at the OSX System Preference "Keyboard" & select "Keyboard Shortcuts". In there you can add applications & shortcuts for many of the menu commands in most apps. It can get complicated since some are not in the menu. Try & test each one. I've added shortcuts & changed some in a few apps. In Aperture I may not agree with the single key shortcuts but I just memorize them rather than making too many changes.

amazo said:

You should look at the OSX System Preference "Keyboard" & select "Keyboard Shortcuts". In there you can add applications & shortcuts for many of the menu commands in most apps.

Click to expand...

That, too, would not be able to solve the given example of pressing "4" on a numeric keypad and typing an "X" instead. Some kind of macro utility is needed.

By the way, to the original poster, if your issue is that you don't want to remember "P" and "X" for Pick and Reject in Lightroom, use the alternate "'" (tilde) key which toggles a photo between Pick and None.

Thanks for the info...

something to think about.

Mateo Miller said:

Perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology but I essentially want to change the numeric keypad portion of the keyboard.

Click to expand...

http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele

--
Edvinas

The change I'd like to be able to do is to give the Wireless Keyboard a second Function key, this one on the right-hand side, by reassigning the back-slash key, so that I could do one-handed forward deletes with the Delete key right above it. I need forward-delete at least a dozen times a day, but the back-slash gets used maybe a dozen times a year.

Doug Bale said:

The change I'd like to be able to do is to give the Wireless Keyboard a second Function key, this one on the right-hand side, by reassigning the back-slash key, so that I could do one-handed forward deletes with the Delete key right above it. I need forward-delete at least a dozen times a day, but the back-slash gets used maybe a dozen times a year.

Click to expand...

This might be of your interest and also OP, but has nothing to do with keyboard shortcuts. It has to do with keyboard layout designing. Fortunately for you, in a very minimal way.

There is a wonderful utility called Ukelele which is a tool to create a new or modified keyboard layout for Mac. This is mainly used by those who are dealing with International languages but it can fairly easily be used to modify few keys on the layout you are using, or to customize a keyboard layout for a particular task, like assigning shortcuts to numeric keypad. I'm fairly familiar with this utility and I can't judge how easy it can be for someone who has no background knowledge on text encoding but in this case, I simply opened the utility and modified the back slash key to forward delete and then you save the file in Library> Keyboard Layouts with a new name and ID, and you'll have it available in Input Sources of your OS system preferences (languages & text). I attach the picture.

Note that function key can not be modified or added to a layout. But the code within a key like back slash can be changed to the code for forward delete. For more info and instruction, here is the source:
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=ukelele

Just make sure any layout you create has a distinctive name and keyboard ID and don't mess with existing keyboard layouts! (very dangerous!)

Mateo, I've been using a free utility called Spark, which has been unfortunately discontinued for a while, for everything I used to use QuickKeys for (macros mostly), and it works great. Works under Lion and will do key reassigning.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14352/spark

Go to cnet.com and search for "keyremap". Works on lion. I'm using it to change page up/down to left/right arrow--for iPhoto only. That way my remote, which does ONLY page up/down can be used to flip through pictures in an album.

Doesn't work in my Lion. The .dmg file opens, runs me through an installation routine much like the ones usually seen, then restarts the iMac (OS 10.7.3) and there's no sign that anything's been installed, either as an application or a utility. If anything has been installed it's in secret, which probably means it's up to no good.

Tried Ukelele too, and it turns out that one of the few things it can't do is the very thing I wanted it for. Some days there just ain't no fish.