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ZDKEYM.TXT
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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
________________________________________________________________
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.
_____________________________________________________________