Home > User Pages > Yaarg Remap

The Yaarg Remap

For those of you who aren't satisfied with the default mapping of the AG-5 or any popular remap out there, here is yet another one! :-) It has a couple of features i haven't seen in any other remap yet, but it's primarily meant for anybody who would like to make their own remap, but doesn't want to build a script from scratch. Since i expect people will be making their own remaps with this, the name Yaarg stands for Yet Another AlphaGrip Remap (yes, i know that actually spells yaagr, but i just couldn't resist making it more piraty :-P) This is another AutoHotkey script, so you will have to get and install AH. Download the Yaarg Zip file to get the AutoHotkey script, the Blue & Cyan icons, and the cheat sheet jpgs.

Here are the new features:

• Easy to reconfigure
• Remapped keys are held down
• Remapping of red and green shiftlevels
• Any number of custom shift levels
• Explicit shift
• Mousewheel simulation
• Suspend on Right shift, alt or control
• No chording
• No mousebooster

Actually the last two aren't really features, but they have a reason.

About the mousebooster, there are enough adequate solutions out there in my opinion, and this script can work in combination with them. By default, the Anderson mouse booster is included if you put it in the same directory as Yaarg. About chording, i might consider doing a version that supports chording, but i'm not a big fan of it myself. I think shifting is really a form of chording as well, but more responsive since keypresses don't have to wait for another keypress (or lack thereof) to fire. Finally, a general framework for chording might present some disappointments since some chords just can't be sent by the hardware.

Other Points

• Easy to reconfigure because the keymap and all shiftlevels appear in the code as laid out on the hardware. Reconfiguring is simply a matter of putting the desired character in the right spot.

• Remapped keys are held down. Usually the Send command is used to remap keys. This command sends a single keypress, ie a key down and up event in one go. If the key is held down, the computer won't be aware it, but key repeats will be sent by the hardware. This script only sends a key down event when a key is pressed, and doesn't send the key up event until the key is released. This makes this script suitable for games that check key states and require the key to be actually down, instead of generating a character.

• Remapping of red and green shift levels means trouble with capital shift. For instance, if you would want to remap % on the green shift map to a normal letter, say x, it would always be capital x because % is sent as shift-5, which would result in the remapped key being sent as shift-x being capital x. This script keeps track of what keys send shifts, and counters them if the remapped character needs it. In some cases this means that you will always get a small x, but you can still make it a capital x by using explicit shift.

• Custom shift levels. You can just copy the layout of a shiftlevel and give it a new name. You will need to define a shift key to go along with it, but this should be relatively easy by looking at how the other shifts are done. Alternatively, you can chord shifts to make new shift levels in the main remap function. There is an example on this functionality too (red shift makes numbers, blue + red makes function keys). Be aware though, that you can't chord red+green. If you press both shifts, then red will override. If you press green with numlock on, then green will override. This is how the hardware works, and no remap can change it.

• Explicit shift is really just a normal capital shift, with the exception that it is sent right away and can also be held down, so it is more like a real shift key. You can use it if the remapping needs to break a shift, te be able to generate a shift press if a program responds to it, or to shift+click.

• Mousewheel simulation is an attempt at getting a better way of scrolling. Using a normal wheel, you can scroll fast or slowly by rolling the wheel accordingly. A single key can't really be used to replace this functionality because it can only be pressed once, repeatedly or held and autorepeated. In this remap, there are two whole rows of scrolling keys (one row for up, one for down) so you can alternate (which can be done slowly or fast, just like rolling a wheel) or "drum" your fingers across them. If you press a scrolling button, this remap will include the index fingers as scrolling buttons too (normally mapped to other functions) to make the rows complete. You might want to remove this functionality however, if your own remap doesn't use it.

• Like the other remaps, this script will toggle suspend with printscreen. In addition, the script suspends when a right-side modifier key is received. The AG-5 is only able to send left shift, left control and left alt. So if the right versions are received, that must mean you've started typing on another keyboard.

Finally some notes on the key map. I am a programmer, so i put all characters i use often in an easy accessible spot. This only affects shifted layouts though, so this shouldn't bother non-programmers. I think shifting is actually more comfortable than using the outer keys, especially with the ring finger (ie W and .: on the hardware map), so i made an ordering of which keys i find most comfortable to type for all positions, and all positions using a shift, and used that to assign characters to keys. In addition, i tried to minimize characters that appear next to each other often sharing a finger, shifted or not (especially hard for the index fingers since they operate four keys).

Shiftmaps

Space is mirrored on the front, so that you may always use a free thumb to type space, even after having typed a shifted character, or even while holding a shift if the character you will type next needs that shift too. The characters in a shiftlevel are grouped functionally.

Blue shift is most easy to type (in my opinion) so it contains the alphabetic characters that won't fit on the unshifted level (which i find more comfortable to type than unshifted outer keys) and punctuation. Red shift is numbers (so you can still use the AG numlock) and operators programmers will use often. Cyan shift (so named because it is located between blue and green, which would make cyan if you mix them) is navigation. Cursor movement and mousewheel simulation is done here. I wanted to include browser_back and browser_forward, but they don't seem to work. Instead, i put alt+left and alt+right there, which corresponds to back and forward in FireFox. Green is special characters, and also includes readymade shortcuts for cut, copy, past and undo.

Download the script here:

http://www.AlphaGrips.com/YAARG.AHK

Download the cheat sheets for the front and back keys here:

http://www.AlphaGrips.com/Yaarg_Front.jpg

http://www.AlphaGrips.com/Yaarg_Back.jpg

If you want to modify the cheat sheets, you can download a zip file containing the photoshop files i used to make them so you can edit them to reflect your own remapping http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alphagrip/web/YaargPSD.zip

This is the mousebooster that the script will include if you put it in the same directory:

http://www.alphagrips.com/AG5_Andersen_MouseBooster_DualMonitor.ahk