Keyboards for Apple; key-mapping angles?
Has anyone here used 'ControllerMate'
http://5thirtyone.com/archives/751
or
'DoubleCommand' ??
http://doublecommand.sourceforge.net/
Need to remap a keyboard --> iMac.
Prologue --
Never having imagined perfection-via-beret (either..) am unsurprised at the designer-trendy flat aluminum keyboard that came with my 5/08-gestation iMac -- and the fact that it Sucks. As a keyboard. As ornament? -- not so much that either. Might as well type on a board. Or a PC-Jr bloody Chiclets toy. YMMV as ever.
Have tried also the earlier white one with conventional key-shapes, long travel (and the same stylish illegible lettering of soft-tan/over white.)
The former fails for having near-zilch travel and nothing even resembling that over-center finger feedback which tells brain that your keystroke registered.
The earlier model has a soft, much longer stroke, no feedback either -- and both leave you with needing to pound the key to try to raise the probability that it registered. (And on that design, the tall keys + No Rim: makes inevitable the accidental hitting of the Enter key edge on the numeric pad RF corner, when reaching for mouse/trackball.)
I read some punctilious essays on kbs at macintouch, elsewhere via usual engines. Obviously too, many are too young ever to have used a typewriter, though the IBM-M legend (at old/new transition) has reached some of the tykes' ken. Then there's Logitech; I thought of trying the DiNovo-for-Mac, [not the Edge, which has a trackpad and is wireless - no want wireless or pad.] Except.. there is universal agreement out there, that: Logi makes decent to excellent mechanicals (well, the Chinese do) but perpetually writes Redmond-grade s/ware ie
The LCC (L Control Center) for Apple also Sucks.
(This I determined for self when installing that, in hopes of accommodating my Trackman Marble w/ peculiar middle-button cum scroll-wheel.) Uninstalled LCC after seeing that it had no useful options for me beyond Apple's limited repertoire; couldn't replace the center button default to Dashboard, even. This for some ridiculous amount of memory chewed up.
Purchase --
Various reviews lauding the feel of the DiNovo/Mac and (the same tri-spring key mechanism in) the Logi Illuminated kb were aiming towards a trial, when the sole Mac user in 7 pages of 'reviews' (Newegg) pronounced the latter copacetic for Mac, superior in feel even to the DiNovo -- though it comes with drivers for XP/Vista only. Got one. Hey! the packaging alone out-Apples Apple's! But I'm not easily seduced by pretty/pretty, thus --
That it is gorgeous too, is beside the point. Black keys + white illumination -- you Can See the Letters, on smaller keys too. The laser-cut + illumination is perfect, has 4 levels incl. OFF and feel does seem to mimic adequately the sanctified IBM Model M, with a shorter stroke but definite toggle feedback: Before hitting bottom!
(Also quieter than IBM's mechanism, though some of us might want the old Otrona trick of adding an audio click (or other sound) as further brain-info on its feel-proof kb.)
It's a Real keyboard, I wot muchly. And heavy/substantial enough to Stay Put.
Chores --
But, in addition to swapping Command for Doze/Apple keys, I need to massage the fn keys (and their pictogram-designated alt-mode.) I see that ControllerMate can also assign a script to a key; grist for future uses of odd keys I'd never use as Logi imagines.
So then.. anyone play on this field; recommendations?
I also wonder about reassignments via CL, whether that task has also been reduced to a recipe for keymap display and a table of switcheroo jargon required. 'man key*' gets a dissertation on that Other kind of 'key', keytool Certificate management
T'anks
Ashton,
gilding lilies since temporary ownership of a Vacheron et Constantine pocket minute-repeater watch: physics + art.
oyTp
