{"id":512,"date":"2008-12-12T13:18:51","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T18:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.codedread.com\/archives\/2008\/12\/12\/keyboard-synergy-on-a-macbook-pro\/"},"modified":"2008-12-12T13:18:51","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T18:18:51","slug":"keyboard-synergy-on-a-macbook-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/12\/12\/keyboard-synergy-on-a-macbook-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Synergy on a Macbook Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><object type=\"image\/svg+xml\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" data=\"http:\/\/codedread.com\/clipart\/apple.svgz\"><span\/><\/object><object type=\"image\/svg+xml\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" data=\"http:\/\/codedread.com\/clipart\/windows.svgz\"><span\/><\/object>Ok, so I've made the switch from primarily Windows to primarily OS X on my MacBook Pro.  However, I still need to occasionally boot into Windows or have Windows running in VMWare Fusion.  This is causing stress injuries in my hands and head because of the differences in keyboard handling.  <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For instance, the Apple key (<object data=\"http:\/\/codedread.com\/clipart\/cmdkey.svgz\" type=\"image\/svg+xml\" style=\"display:inline; width:0.8em; height:0.8em\">cmd<\/object>) is used for most key combinations (copy\/paste\/open\/save\/close) while the ctrl key is used in a similar way on Windows.  Worse, the ctrl key is located further left on the keyboard than on typical keyboards, meaning my poor baby finger is being used more than it should be.<\/p>\n<p>So what I'd like to do is figure out a way to swap the ctrl and Apple\/Windows key while in Windows.  I've done a preliminary scour of the web and turned up a <a href=\"http:\/\/discussions.apple.com\/thread.jspa?threadID=1546594&tstart=150\">keyboard remapping utility<\/a> from Microsoft that sadly doesn't touch the 'special' keys.  I also turned up an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.annoyances.org\/exec\/forum\/winxp\/t1014389848\">ancient thread<\/a> about twiddling with the registry, but I don't want to do that unless I need to.  Lazyweb?<\/p>\n<p>Update: A few scant hours from posting this, I got a reply from Ian below that does exactly what I want.  With <a href=\"http:\/\/www.randyrants.com\/2006\/07\/sharpkeys_211.html\">SharpKeys<\/a> for Windows, you can re-map your Left Windows key to the Left Ctrl key and get that synergy I was looking for.  Now the Apple-C works as Copy on both OS X and Windows!  Beautiful!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Image showing how to map the left Apple\/Cmd key to the left Ctrl key in Windows using SharpKeys\" src=\"http:\/\/www.codedread.com\/images\/sharpkeys.png\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Note that there is a right Apple\/Cmd key if you're a big Windows key user (Windows+E brings up the Explorer, for instance).<\/p>\n<p>My only fear with all this is that I will hobbled when I go to someone else's Windows computer.  Small price to pay for sanity on my own computer though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, so I&#8217;ve made the switch from primarily Windows to primarily OS X on my MacBook Pro. However, I still need to occasionally boot into Windows or have Windows running in VMWare Fusion. This is causing stress injuries in my hands and head because of the differences in keyboard handling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25,11,29],"tags":[109,112,119,187],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft","category-software","category-technology","category-windows","tag-keyboard","tag-macbook","tag-os-x","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.codedread.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}