First post, by Dominus
- Rank
- DOSBox Moderator
This may be also good for the guide section or the WIKI (when I have time I'll submit this to the Wiki, I guess).
I've had some problems with my keyboard and OS X, some Dosbox keycombinations would not work regardless of what I did.
After many investigations with the help of Rhoenie and Tryton (that's ripsaw or robertmo, not sure who is named Tryton on IRC) I found that my problem was caused by two things:
1.)I was using a Logitech keyboard (cordless wave) that even though it is supposed to be mac compatible, it isn't really.
Without the Logitech software (LCC) some things do work but the moment you switch command and option (ALT) key in the OS X keyboard settings (to make the layout behave like a real mac keyboard layout) you are losing your right ALT key, since OS X assigns the left ALT key functionality to the right ALT key (this is only bad when you want to use the german keybaord layout in DOSBox -> you can't type \ anymore). Also this keyboard has one key for both Scroll Lock and Pause, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to work as Pause key.
Basicly the same stuff happens when you use the Logitech drivers, except for the missing right ALT key functionality some F-keys behave differently unless you explicitly tell the software to have them behave normally.
But for example F12 is assigned to be the eject key and thus not always works in DOSBox.
2.)In the end I ditched my beloved Logitech Wave keyboard (which is really a joy to write on) and switched with my gf's apple keyboard with numpad.
When I did that I found the solution to another problem, which plagued me, some F-keys were behaving differently.
Solution was to look much more closely at the OS X system control settings.
- in the keyboard settings in the tab "keyboard shortcuts" some of the DOSBox shortcuts were already given to something else. Especially the Exposé and Spaces settings grab some F-keys.
- In the Exposé and Spaces settings themselves the key F8 is setup to start Spaces (multi-desktop program), and EVEN though I had disabled Spaces alltogether it blocked the use of F8 in DOSBox. Assigning anoter key fixed that, thankfully.
(- since the Apple keyboard does have an extra eject key to the right of F12, the F12 key worked flawlessly right away in Dosbox, not like that stupid Logitech keyboard)
Note:
The Apple keyboard has no keys labeled Print Screen, Scroll lock or Pause, but some F-keys (the Apple keyboard has F1-F19) are recognized in Dosbox as those:
- F14 is Print Screen
- F15 is Scroll Lock
- F16 is Pause
Unfortunately the Pause functionality in Dosbox is not correctly working in OS X:
Alt-F16 is supposed to pause Dosbox, which works, and pressing Pause (F16) should unpause Dosbox which it doesn't 🙁
So, after messing all day yesterday with this stuff, I thought it would be better to share this here for others.
Interesting would be how the Apple Wireless Keyboard would fare, since those have no numpad and no keys F13-F19. So no scroll lock, pause or numlock key... these would all need remapping in Dosbox' mapper...