[MlMt] Keybindings for non-US keyboards

[Bill Cole]

On 30 Sep 2020, at 11:39, Robert Brenstein wrote:

> He meant that to produce the left square bracket on the German 
> keyboard, he needs to press alt-5 (option-5 if you will). So how do 
> you produce a shortcut that itself requests the alt key to be hold.

My point is that 'cmd' and 'alt' are usually not the same key. Maybe a 
picture of the left-side modifier keys (other than shift) of my old 
MacBook explains what I mean better:

![](cid:21D5E9F3-2726-4F53-8260-78BCD8C30CB2 at billmail.scconsult.com 
"IMG_1660.jpg")

Note that 'option' is also labeled 'alt' and 'command' is marked '⌘' 
(an ancient artifact descended from the "Open Apple" key on Apple ][ 
keyboards) and on newer Mac US-English keyboards, option is marked '⌥' 
to match the symbols used in menus.


The indentation menu commands are ⌘-[ and ⌘-] so on a keyboard with 
a ⌘ (command/cmd) key and an alt (option/⌥) key where you need alt-5 
to get [, 'decrease indentation' would be ⌘-alt-5

Some keyboards have "Meta" or "Windows" keys that might get mapped to 
⌘. Mapping BOTH ⌘ and ⌥ to a single 'alt' key would be 
intrinsically broken, because they have always served distinct purposes.

> Will the alt key be recognized doubly, once to produce the bracket and 
> then to produce the shortcut? I gather he has to remap these shortcuts 
> to completely other keys.

It is essential that you have distinct mappings for the distinct 
modifier keys.

-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com or billcole at apache.org
(AKA @grumpybozo and many *@billmail.scconsult.com addresses)
Not Currently Available For Hire
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