The mapper isn't usable to recreate non english keyboards layouts. It maps a whole key from the standard qwerty us layout to any other palce. So you get the colon by shifting the semicolon key, wherever you put it.

Maybe someone could post a german mapper.txt.

Ah, thank you, now I get the principle behind the keymapper.

@gdp2000: As Zorbid already said, it won't be possible to get something similar to a German keyboard layout. The reason I now also see is: For example on German keyboards the colon is on the same key as the dot, but the keymapper only allows to change the whole key as one. It's like you change the position of some keys on your keyboard, but the signs written on the keys stay the same (in this case with the US layout).
You could try to use one of the other methods described in the readme if you have to change this behaviour.

Then what is the keymapper for?

gdp2000 wrote:

Then what is the keymapper for?

Normal DOS games use keys from QWERTY keyboard. Key mapper enables to remap all of them to what you want.
Cannot you get \ on your keyboard? Simply map it where you want.
Do you want to switch Y and Z? Use keymapper.
Do you think that the authors of your favourite DOS game spoiled it by assigning stupid keys to various functions? Simply use keymapper.

My mother tongue is Czech and I have never had any need for national keyboard etc. Keymapper is dream come true and all I need. I have never met a DOS game which would expect non-US keyboard ...
If you really need a national keyboard (what for? - is anybody writing text in DOSBOX?), use KEYB from FreeDOS.

Mirek

Glad to see that I am not the only one questioning the existence and purpose of the keymapper.

In a time where everyone is mad about internationalization and localization, your attitude is the only acceptable one. Once again: When pressing "z" on my german keyboard, I want dosbox or the application running in it to show a "z", not a "y". yadda yadda yadda. I'm so tired of it. Don't make me laugh at you when you say that the keymapper is your dream came true. Nonsense. All I want is a "z" when pressing "z", a ":" when pressing ":" and so on WITHOUT having to remap my keyboard first so that it complies with some us layout. Is it really that hard to understand? I don't think so. The same shit goes for non posix parameters and config files. dosbox is a fantastic application, but this shit spoils everything.

JT - Guest wrote:

The same shit goes for non posix parameters and config files. dosbox is a fantastic application, but this shit spoils everything.

You can freely disagree with me, but if you keep using worlds like "shit" in your replies I will close this thread...
What I said is true for me (so it is not nonsence!), if you do not agree you can answer normally. It is a free world. But we do not need swearing people like you around here.

Mirek

JT, please remember that you didn't pay a dime to get DOSBox. Keep this kind of childish attidude to some other place, and show some respect to the people who spend hours of their free time to offer you DOSBox.

Out of the box, the default keyboard layout of the real DOS PCs was US QWERTY. You had to use Keyb in order to use a localised keyboard.

The DOSBox team tried to remap automatically the keys/characters in previous versions, but their solutions didn't work as expected. The DOSBox i/o is limited to what SDL provides, and, while its a very good and portable libary, SDL hasn't exactly been written to create emulators. Since automatic remapping wasn't working very well, the DOSBox team decided to drop it.

The mapper allows you to virtually rewire your keybord. It is not a true replacement for the automatic mapping that occured before. It may work for some keyboards layouts, very close to the original US QWERTY, but that's all.
As Mirek pointed it, it gives you the option to change the layout for a given game, which can dramatically enhace playablity and fun (I remeber some very old games that used O/P for left/right, and Q/A for up and down, it was tolally unplayable).

What would be nice for me, as I already suggested in the beta board, is a real keyb emulation inside DOSBox, at the interrupt level, to mimic the way keyb worked in real DOS boxes. But that another matter.

The FreeDOS Keyb 2.0 works very well in DOSBox, as does the original keyb.com from MS-DOS 5.0, BTW.

I wonder: would not it be possible to arrange with people from FreeDOS that we would be allowed to pack that KEYB utility in our installer (I mean especiallythe Windows version of DOSBOX which is used by majority of newbies)? There is information about it in README, but still there are many people who seem to ignore it and ask or get angry on this board ...

As for Zorbid's idea about integration into DOSBOX: it is the best from the user's point of view, but it could be a burden to keep it error free for all languages (troubles with error reports like: the second key in the top row is wrong on the chinese keyboard 😀 ).
I think this is similar to DPMI support (dropped in DOSBOX since there are better DPMI servers available and it would be just unnecessary burden to keep it up to date).
If KEYB from FreeDOS really works ok (I did not test it), I think it could be permanent solution for DOSBOX (it is no worse that what was in normal DOS).

Mirek

mirekluza wrote:

If KEYB from FreeDOS really works ok (I did not test it), I think it could be permanent solution for DOSBOX (it is no worse that what was in normal DOS).

The FreeDOS keyb works well, takes little memory, and it's GPL'ed, so you can bundle it as long as you provide it's source for download as well.

As for Zorbid's idea about integration into DOSBOX: it is the best from the user's point of view, but it could be a burden to keep it error free for all languages (troubles with error reports like: the second key in the top row is wrong on the chinese keyboard 😀 ).

I get what you mean 😀. But you could use the FreeDOS keyboard layouts, they are GPLed as well (there are 85 diferent layouts available in the kpDOS11x.zip archive).

I don't know how this layout database has been built, but I assume that it's been created by users all around the world, each of them contributing to it by creating al .kl file with his local layout.

What I imagined was something in between the mapper and keyb as a real TSR loaded from a mounted drive:
a virtual keyb.com, on the z: drive, that would load the FreeDOS .KL layouts from the host filesystem, outside the emulation, but act as a TSR inside DOSBox.

Why not auto-mount some directory as y: or similar, where the installer could put open source executables of common DOS commands? That way, it would be easy to support more commands (xcopy? edit?) without doing anything.

Example: Dosbox is installed in "c:\program files\dosbox", then it would auto-mount y: as "c:\program files\dosbox\system", where the above mentioned utilities reside.

It's nothing new, only it happens automatically for the convenience of the users.

Very good idea 😀

You could do that by adding a line in the [autoexec] section of the default dosbox.conf.

Currently, I have a directory mounted as Y:, but I think I'll be able to cope with that 😉.

Ok, this may be a little late for anyone, but here is my solution.
I did this before checking here, so I didn't know about keyb.exe.

Now, I have a swedish keyboard. I also have (well, had:)) the problem of not beeing able to type ':'.
My 'ö' button is located is located where the ':' button is located on a us-keyboard. ':' on a swedish keyboard = shift+period.

Normaly 'ö' produces ':' output under us-settings.
By default, SDL doesn't react to 'ö' at all, meaning I can't map it, or in any way use that button.

Fortunately you can easily enable unicode translation in SDL, though it produces a bit of overhead, so it's off by default.

However, there doesn't seem to be any code in place to enable it.
(did 'grep -R SDL_EnableUNICODE *', for you windows ppl, grep i a unix command)

So I added it as a command line option, see below.

in sdlmain.cpp;
function: int main(int argc, char* argv[])

1line:108: /*turns keyboad unicode translation on*/
2line:109: if (control->cmdline->FindExist("-unicode")) SDL_EnableUNICODE(1);

Now it reacts to the 'å','ä','ö' -keys, so I can use these keys for mapping:)
If I add -unicode as a command line option, that is.

My dosbox version is 0.62, running on Fedora Core 2.

Info on the function:
SDL_EnableUNICODE

Edit: NOTE: I may also be off completely, as I'm very tired. cheers:)

Edit: NOTE: I seem to be off completly, 🤣;) 😁 😅 😅

Hm, most interesting. I hope Qbix, and Harekiet and the rest of ya fellas take notice of this.

Before the keymapper I could switch between dvorak and then go back to standard querty when I was playing the game. Now I can't.

I have an idea for keymapper. One that would make it better for people who use non standard keyboard layouts, and those that require mappings for many different games.

1. Make it off by default. No one ever complained about keymappings before, this would fix all the problems. This way anyone can use their standard os keyboard mapping in dosbox if they say, need to type dos commands or use a word processor. 😳
2. Have the keymapper open by the same way as before and make a little menu system that lets you map keys, and save or load mapper.txt files.
3. Make a toggle hotkey to switch between *off* and the currently selected mapper.text file.

Need default windows layout so you can load your game? should be set to off by default no problems. Need to game? hit the hotkey for the mapper.txt and play the game? need to play a different game? open up the keymapper and open a saved mapper.txt

Sounds like a good idea. Too bad i can't program 😒

Lopan: "One dosbox with 2 mappings?? The best of both worlds!"

Graig wrote:

No one ever complained about keymappings before ...

Wrong. We had here crowds of people complaining about not being able to write \ .
I think that keymapper and KEYB from FreeDOS (supposedly 100 % working in DOSBOX) should be enough for most people.

Mirek