Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator

[Wakers]

On my win 7 machine I have a custom keyboard layout that I've made using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. Works perfectly.

On Windows 8, I can install the custom keyboard layout that I've created, it says it installs successfully, but when I go to the Input Language settings in 8, it's not listed anywhere.

If I run MKLC and try to find the keyboard layout, again it shows up. Has anyone else gotten this to work? I realise its a bit of a niche thing but I can always hope!

[Tim Holt_157895]

Registered to reply with the workaround: if you turn on the touch keyboard, your custom keyboard will appear as one of the choices when pressing the bottom-right, layout selection button.

I was exultant when I figured this out.

(edit: note that changing your touch keyboard this way affects your normal keyboard.)

[Wakers]

  On 04/03/2012 at 19:51, Tim Holt_157895 said:

Registered to reply with the workaround: if you turn on the touch keyboard, your custom keyboard will appear as one of the choices when pressing the bottom-right, layout selection button.

I was exultant when I figured this out.

(edit: note that changing your touch keyboard this way affects your normal keyboard.)

Wow, brilliant, I shall try that out! thanks very much.

Is the 'touch keyboard' the same as the on screen keyboard? Because I can't find a layout option..

[Paul Ferson Veteran]

Since the question has been answered, I may as well ask: why would you want to change your keyboard layout? Is it because you're on QWERTY and want DVORAK, or you want a custom layout? It seems very strange but it's impressive the functionality exists.

[Wakers]

  On 04/03/2012 at 21:18, Paul Ferson said:

Since the question has been answered, I may as well ask: why would you want to change your keyboard layout? Is it because you're on QWERTY and want DVORAK, or you want a custom layout? It seems very strange but it's impressive the functionality exists.

It's a very unique situation. Basically, I'm English but moved to Switzerland. The Swiss German layout is QWERTZ but with French accents and a ?, which standard DE layout don't have. (You can find the layout on wikipedia).

I ordered a WASD keyboard (they custom build keyboards, really cool company - mechanical switches), but they didn't know that Swiss Layout is QWERTZ, so my keyboard came with the Y and Z keys the wrong way around.

No big deal, they're sending me replacement keys, but in the mean time I wanted to have a custom layout that was Swiss German but QWERTY. I've used a blank keyboard for a few years, but for some reason having the etching on them and it being the wrong way round really messes me up!

[Tim Holt_157895]

  On 04/03/2012 at 21:18, Paul Ferson said:

Since the question has been answered, I may as well ask: why would you want to change your keyboard layout? Is it because you're on QWERTY and want DVORAK, or you want a custom layout? It seems very strange but it's impressive the functionality exists.

Me, I like tweaking my workflow. I use dvorak, so I started there. The letters I left alone, but, being a programmer, I rearranged the various brackets/parenthesis for easier access. Being a heavy Vim user, I also rearranged the numbers to a strange but not unprecedented "scrambled" order that brings the more common digits nearer to the stronger fingers.

Then I threw in some FreeCompose (for unicode character composing) and TouchCursor (for home-row/near-home-row cursor movement (outside of Vim, of course)) for good measure. I'm thinking of remapping CapsLock to Esc (important in Vim) using SharpKeys.