Filed under: OS, Odds and ends, Freeware
Ukelele: visual keyboard layout editor
One of the things I like about working on our Ask TUAW series is that researching answers to readers' questions leads me to interesting software I would not otherwise likely find. This week's Ask TUAW is a case in point, when somebody asked about remapping keyboard keys, it lead me to Ukelele, a cool visual keyboard layout editor. Ukelele presents you with a keyboard (above) and allows you to create custom key mappings simply by double-clicking on the visual representation of the key or even just dragging and dropping a character from the Character Palette onto the visual keyboard. Once the key layout is created you'll just need to select it from the Input Menu tab of the International Preference Pane (you can also activate a menubar icon to make it even easier to select between different keyboard layouts). So if you've ever wanted to remap a large number of your keys for some specialized purpose (e.g. a foreign language or even a programming language), then Ukelele will make it relatively easy.
Ukelele is a free download from NRSI.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ThunkDifferent.com said 11:31AM on 4-27-2007
This app is pretty slick, but seems to complicate simply going to your options and changing the language. I suppose non-western type-pads this is much more useful. How about projection keyboards? Does anyone think an ipod/iriver or mac will come out with a high quality one in the next few years?
Sample: http://www.alpern.org/weblog/stories/2003/01/09/projectionKeyboards.html
http://ThunkDifferent.com
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Bogey said 12:22PM on 4-27-2007
As a "switcher" (and pretty happy with it) what I miss from Windows, is the Ctrl-Esc option to activate the "System" menu. Or even the old three finger salute - Ctrl-Alt-Del. Is there anyway to mimic those key combos?
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Ed said 6:02PM on 5-01-2007
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/
This will be sh*t hot when it actually comes out, I don't know if its been mentioned here before.. but its a completely user definable keyboard. The keys have LEDs in them which can change to however you want them to be, whether it be a gaming mode, or a PhotoShop shortcut mode etc etc.
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Martin said 1:57PM on 4-27-2007
Command-Option-Escape is used to kill processes. I have no idea what a "System" menu is.
I used Ukelele for my programming needs. Caps Lock is mapped to Option (using System Preferences). and Option H is \, Option J is {, Option K is } and some more. These keys are hard to reach on my non-english keyboard layout, so this change is simply great :-)
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frogbat said 2:04PM on 4-27-2007
it's a great product - but when i had tried it I found it a bit fiddly and ended up editin the xml manually
still proved useful as i had to create a Maltese keymap as it's one of the few lingos omitted from OSX... can't imagine why (think Klingon's more widely spoken).
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eric f. said 11:17AM on 4-28-2007
Hey Mat, Whatever happened to that keyboard application (which I think was located in the Utilities folder)? If you launched it it would display a tiny keyboard on the screen. Then, if you held down shift, control or option keys it would display where all those obscure symbol keysare located that most of us need once a year and can't remember where they're located. if there is another option for that app, that would make a good mac 101...
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adam said 12:15PM on 4-28-2007
i've been searching for quite awhile, attempting to use this and other programs with no success as of yet unfortunately.
The "problem" i'm trying to solve is a one-handed method of using "page up", "page down", "home" and "end" commands...in my browser (firefox atm) on a regular macbook. Currently the only way i know is to press the function key (on the far left side of the keyboard) along with the arrow keys (on the far right). I use these commands VERY frequently skimming through web pages and the like and would LOVE to find a solution to this...without having to attach a mouse. Any ideas?
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John Stone said 2:36PM on 4-29-2007
Eric.F - what you are probably thinking of is the Keyboard Viewer which should be found in the menu bar under the display for your International Preference otherwise go to your system preferences and choose 'international' and then the 'input menu' tab. You will then be able to choose to put Keyboard Viewer on the menu. (Of course whenever I need to use it I forget where to find it!
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