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ZDKeyMap (VERSION 1.00) Copyright (c) 1997 Ziff-Davis Publishing
Company
By Zan Oliphant
First Published in PC Magazine May 6, 1997
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About  ZDKeyMap...

ZDKeyMap adds a property page to the Control Panel's Keyboard 
applet that lets you remap all the standard keys on your 
keyboard. Thus you can swap the CapsLock and Left Ctrl keys to 
avoid pressing CapsLock accidentally, or turn little-used keys
on a notebook into other keys that the notebook may be missing.
ZDKeyMap works only with standard keys; it does not support 
extended keys.

USAGE:

The ZDKeyMap program includes three files: zdkeymap.dll, 
vkeymap.vxd, and zdkeymap.inf. Place these three files in the 
same folder and click on zdkeymap.inf within Explorer. Select 
Install from the context menu and Windows will copy the files 
to their appropriate destinations. Because of a bug in 
Windows 95, the full pathname of the folder that contains the 
files must contain only old-fashioned 8.3 DOS-style filenames. 
If the pathname is invalid, you will get the following error 
message while installing: "The disk labeled 'ZDKeyMap Disk' 
is now required." If you get this message, cancel the install 
and try again using a folder whose full pathname contains 
only DOS-style filenames.

Once the installation is complete, you will need to restart 
Windows, even though the new property page will already be 
in place. This is necessary to load the second component of
the utility, the VxD, which communicates with the controls 
on the property page so they actually do something. 
When your system is done rebooting, open the Control Panel 
and double click on the Keyboard icon to bring up the 
keyboard properties. You will see a new tab called 
"Key Mapping". Click on that tab and you will see the 
ZDKeyMap property page, which contains two list boxes. 
The list box on the left displays the original key 
definition, and the list box on the right shows the 
current key mapping. 

To change a key mapping, select the key you want to change 
in the left-hand list box, and then select the key you'd 
like it to map to in the right-hand list box. Your change 
is not recorded until you click the Apply button. So, for 
example, to change your CapsLock key into a Shift key, 
you'd select CapsLock in the left-hand list box, then 
select Left Shift in the right-hand list box, and 
click Apply. 

When you change a key mapping, the remapped key is marked 
with an asterisk in the left-hand list box.

The keys are presented in logical groupings to make them 
easy to find, but you can also jump to a key immediately. 
To find a key quickly, click anywhere in a list box to 
make it the active control, then press the first letter 
of the name of the key you want to find. Press the same 
letter again to find the next key that begins with that 
letter. This technique will work in both the left-hand 
and right-hand list boxes.

Below the two list boxes are four buttons: Swap, Restore 
Defaults, About, and Help. The Swap button is convenient 
for switching two keys. For example, let's say you want 
to switch your CapsLock key and your Left Ctrl key. 
First remap CapsLock to Left Ctrl. Then click Swap and 
ZDKeyMap will automatically remap Left Ctrl to CapsLock. 
Click Apply to register the change. To restore the 
original mapping, click the Restore Defaults button 
and then click Apply. The About button brings up 
copyright information, and the Help button displays some 
helpful hints for using ZDKeyMap.

To uninstall ZDKeyMap, open the Control Panel, double 
click on Add/Remove Programs, select ZDKeyMap from the 
list of installed programs, and click the 
Add/Remove button.

Support for ZDKeyMap:
Support for the free utilities offered by PC Magazine 
can be obtained electronically  in the discussion area 
of PC Magazine's Web site and in the Utilities section 
of ZD Net's TIPS Forum on CompuServe. For PC Magazine's 
Web site go to the URL http://www.pcmag.com/discuss/ 
and select the Utilities area. You can also access the 
Utilities discussion area from the utility's download 
page.  The authors of current utilities generally 
monitor the discussion area every day.  You may find 
an answer to your question simply by reading the 
messages previously posted. If the author is not 
available and you have a question that the sysops 
can't answer, the editor of the Utilities column, who 
also checks the area each day, will contact the 
author for you.

For ZD Net's TIPS Forum (GO ZNT:TIPS). The authors of 
current utilities generally visit this forum daily. 
You may find an answer to your question by reading the 
messages already posted in the forum. If the author is 
not available and the forum sysops can't answer your 
question, the Utilities column editor, who checks this 
forum each day, will contact the author for you.

Zan Oliphant is president of Zan Software, the author 
of Programming Netscape Plug-ins (Sams.net Publishing), 
and a frequent contributor to PC Magazine. He can be 
reached by e-mail at zan@gate.net.
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