Roll your own WinXP keyboard is not rocket science, shocker

YOU DON'T have to struggle with the default key maps provided with Windows. Yet few people venture to redesign their own keyboard map with Microsoft's freeware utility. We prove here you have nothing to fear.

Anyone can have a reason for redefining the keyboard layout. In the case of this scribbler the main reason was owning a US notebook with US keyboard and often having to type in Spanish, with all the special characters like the ñ and the acute accent in vowels that come with it. Yes, WinXP provides ways to switch between key maps using the floating "Language Bar" or its icon docked next to the Systray, but switching back and forth between key maps can get a bit irritating. And some key maps like US International help. But in some instances that might be not enough.

US-International and UK-Extended

The "US International" keymap helps a bit with typing foreign - different from the keyboard used - languages by providing an easier way to enter accented vowels and the like, but what if you want to avoid the use of the Alt-Gr key to obtain special characters? Back when IBM was a software company, it included in OS/2 Warp one great keyboard layout in its Warp 3.0 OS dubbed "Brazilian (274)" which provided the same features as "US International" but without the use of the AltGr key, using "dead keys" instead.

Special keys are ones that when pressed a first time do not generate any character but when a following character is pressed it alters the symbol generated by the second key press. So, a dead key + "a" produces á. Or a dead key followed by "c" produces the copyright sign. For those with UK keyboards there's hope in the form of the "UK-Extended" layout provided with WinXP SP2, but even then it makes use of the AltGr keys and might not produce all the symbols that you want/need.

They're not dead, Jim
It was on the Commodore Amiga that we first experienced "dead keys". In that platform, those were often called "Modifier keys". The Amiga also featured a " USA2" keymap where you got accented vowels by pressing Alt and some of the normal keys... it also featured a "USA2" keymap where you got accented vowels by just pressing Alt and some of the normal keys.

We soon learned that the "modifier keys" were ominously referred to as "dead " keys exclusively in OS/2 and Windows. In any case, "Dead Keys" are not a Microsoft Windows invention, and neither are keymap editors, the only difference being that the Amiga's ran in a 512K system, compared to today's Windows utility written in .Net and which eats 8 megabytes of RAM. But forgive my digression.

Editing "Dead Keys" with MSFT's tool

So you want a custom keymap?
Whackypedia explains other situations and discrepancies that might warrant rolling your own keyboard layout over here. Customising the keymap is the only choice if you want all of the above. So What happens if you decide you want to "roll your own" keymap to use a "dead key" for certain symbols instead of the AltGr key, but you don't want to pay for shareware? It tuns out it's quite easy to do it.

Enter MSKLV
Keymap editors are nothing new either. The Amiga had tiny free ones as well as OS/2. Eventually, we figure Microsoft will bundle its freeware offering with the Windows OS.

Microsoft's Keymap editor for Windows 2000 and above is dubbed MSKL - Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. The latest version - 1.4 - works on Windows 2000 and XP. It's available as a 10MB+ download and requires the .Net framework to work.

Microsoft also requires you to validate your copy of Windows by running Genuinecheck.exe - a procedure which can be spared if you load the download with MS IE. Installation was a breeze in WinXP SP2 with no reboot needed. You get a program icon right in Start-Programs.

Working with MSKLV

When you launch it you see a graphical representation of a standard desktop keyboard, but all keys are blank. It'd be insane to do all key mappings from scratch, so the first procedure is loading an existing keymap, you should use the one corresponding to your actual hardware keyboard and language. Then you can start customising keys. It's as easy as clicking into each key displayed and then pasting the character you want assigned to that key. You can open the Charmap utility to obtain all characters you want.

There's a toggle in there to switch "shift states" and other "modified states " Ctrl+key, or Alt-Gr. Most importantly, you can also define "dead keys". You do this by right-clicking and selecting "Set as dead key", or if it's been already set as such,"Dead Key dialogue" to add, edit or remove dead key combinations starting with that given key. You can easily notice dead keys because the colour changes on the graphical keymap to light grey.

Once you are happy with your keyboard then select 'Project - Test Keyboard Layout…' you will see a text entry field and can type your heart out on a blank window and test the new layout. If all works well then select 'Project - Validate Layout', this will give you a report about any problems that were detected in your keyboard definition.

You should keep in mind that when setting up "dead keys", the last entry in the table should be the "space bar", that is, the value where [dead key + space bar] produces the character of the dead key itself as a result. In other words, let's say you have the ['] key as a dead key, well, ['] plus the space bar should give you the ['] character. That's a rule you should obey.

When you are done you select Project->Build DLL and setup packages. As a result you get nice Windows installer packages for all three platforms (32-bit x86, 64-bit x64, and IA64). You can then install these files on your own system, or pass these around to replicate your own keymap on other Windows running PCs. It's as simple as that. If you want a picture of your new keyboard map, you can select File->Save as image.

The table for entering dead key combinations can be a bit daunting for the novice: "Base (code point)", " Composite (code point)", along with the "Base" and "Composite" columns made no sense to us! We soon found what each column meant: the first is where you enter the original key press - say [a] - it should be labelled "Original key", the second is where you paste the character you want that key to produce - when pressed after the 'dead key', it should really be labelled "Paste here result code". The third and fourth column are auto-filled by the software with the relevant scan codes.

Because you can click on these cells in the table, you can initially assume that you have to type there. These are bugs that MSFT should address: the wording and the clickability of those table columns/cells.

Other than that, it's a useful piece of freeware if you want to go crazy with your keyboard layout. A good tool for the heavy typist with custom needs for users of the proprietary OS from the Redmond Juggernaut.

So you can suddenly type em all with the "dead key" combination of your choice, instead of using and holding the AltGr key: á © ™ etc. Oh wait there's one more: µ