Windows: Control key not recognised when remapped with SharpKeys

johnnovak · January 24, 2021, 1:59am

I use SharpKeys to swap the CapsLock key with LeftControl on my keyboard on Windows 10. This works fine in absolutely everything, including games, BUT not in the latest version of Renoise. Basically, none of the default Ctrl shortcuts work, and if I try to reassing a custom shortcut to them, neither my hardware CapsLock or hardware LeftControl keys are recognised.

It would be nice if this could be fixed. I am a programmer myself and I’m not even sure how it is possible that this remapping breaks Control handling in Renoise altogether. In my own GLFW based programs the remapping works just fine and completely transparently when I’m handling keycodes.

Thanks in advance guys!

ags · January 25, 2021, 1:43pm

You can map caps to ctrl without any third party stuff:

# remap Caps-lock to be another left-ctrl
# run as admin
$hexified = "00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00".Split(',') | % { "0x$_"};
$kbLayout = 'HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout';

New-ItemProperty -Path $kbLayout -Name "Scancode Map" -PropertyType Binary -Value ([byte[]]$hexified);
# To revert:
#Remove-ItemProperty -Path $kbLayout -Name "Scancode Map"

Write-Host "Now reboot";

maybe Renoise plays nicely with this (I haven’t tested).

johnnovak · January 25, 2021, 11:05pm

Thanks, SharpKeys is basically a GUI frontend for making such registry changes, so it does the same thing. So yeah, Renoise does not work with swapping Ctrl and CapsLock via the registry method, to be more exact.

kytdkut · January 26, 2021, 1:47am

yes, it does not work here either; I have caps lock remapped to esc everywhere and when I’m renoising on windows I go ouch

ags · January 26, 2021, 10:45am

Damn.

johnnovak · February 18, 2021, 12:54am

So, looks like 23 days have passed since my original post and no follow up from the devs… Do you guys know how reporting bugs is supposed to work here? I thought this is how you do it, just create a new thread in “Help, Support & Bugs” and that’s it.

Anyway, it would be good to get some official acknowledgement of this being a bug and some ETA on the fix (if it will be ever fixed), etc. Thanks!

itsmonktastic · July 5, 2021, 4:26am

Also in the “mapped caps lock as escape” camp here. It still works in renoise 3.1 so I’ve been using that!

noby · April 23, 2022, 12:11am

Yeah like I reported over a year ago (Keyboard shortcuts using ALT modifier do not work) and in fact even before me reported all the way back in mid 2019. Renoise has had an incompatibility with this Windows key remapping feature since version 3.2. Really hope this could be taken a look, since it limits the available keyboard shortcuts quite a lot, and many defaults don’t work at all.

zarf · March 9, 2023, 12:51pm

Hi first post here… to bump this issue. Bought renoise a while back but never had time to learn it. Just coming to it now, and my Ctrl / Caps swap (done through windows registry which works everywere else) is not working in Renoise. Total workflow problem for me and sadly means I can’t use versions after 3.1 (which works great in this regard).
Please can this be fixed so I can enjoy using this lovely software?
Thanks