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Support contributing different keybindings based on keyboard layout

See original GitHub issue

VSCode should ship out of the box with multiple keymaps (based on/optimized for each keyboard layout). e.g. toggle line comment should be ctrl+7 on swiss keyboards, etc.

VSCode should detect at runtime the current system keyboard layout and employ different defaults, based on the keyboard layout.

Issue Analytics

State:
Created 8 years ago
Reactions:50
Comments:18 (12 by maintainers)

Top GitHub Comments

3reactions

flepscommented, Mar 18, 2021

I have a small programable keyboard that uses BootMapper Client to setup keybinds. It’s configured to send the normal extra “F” keys tradicional keyboards don’t have like F20, 21, 22, 23, 24, which are all valid keys. For some reason VSCode does not detect these keys (but any other software does)

If I try to use the F20 key, what I get is an “unknown” Using the debugger, I get this:

/ Received keydown event - modifiers: [], code: F20, keyCode: 131, key: F20 | Converted keydown event - modifiers: [], code: F20, keyCode: 0 (‘unknown’) \ Keyboard event cannot be dispatched in keydown phase.

If I use other keys like F12, this doesn’t happen, even if I program the F12 to come from the macro keyboard.

Why VSCode just don’t use the KeyCode? Why does it need to “convert” it??

It seems we had a setting in the past that fixed this on Windows ( “keyboard.dispatch”: “keyCode” ) but now this setting is not valid anymore.

Again, why? Why overcomplicate such a simple thing for valid keyCodes that exist since forever?

2reactions

patryscommented, Sep 11, 2018

I think it’s maybe time to revive this issue. A number of other issues have been merged into this one including a lot of issues about languages that depend on AltGr. Now AltGr is a technique that gives one or both <kbd>Alt</kbd> a special function of switching to a secondary keyboard layout group.

Polish for example depends on AltGr to to switch between naked characters and accented ones. Pressing <kbd>Z</kbd> gives you Z while pressing <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>Z</kbd> gives you Ż. Polish diacritics are not otherwise available as separate keys (long story short: there used to be a Polish typist keyboard layout and typewriters used it but we had to import computers with US keyboards because communism).

Now <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>Z</kbd> from the example above is currently mapped to “toggle word wrap”. This means we can’t type in Polish without remapping parts of the keyboard.