Keyboard Mapper Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, --------------- September 2007. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? | * About the Included Sample Keyboard Maps | * Installing and Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * The Future | * Special Thanks To | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Keyboard Mapper for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Keyboard Mapper enables you to create keyboard maps - that is, diagrams showing you what particular keyboard keys do for a particular computer program, application, or game. You can save and load the keyboard maps to file, and you can also save a bitmap of the entire keyboard to file and copy it to the Windows Clipboard. Keyboard Mapper is hopefully a powerful and useful program that will enable people to quickly and easily create diagrams showing you what particular keyboard keys do for a particular computer program, application, or game. As far as I can tell, this program is unique - there is nothing out there on the internet that provides similar functionality that I have been able to find. Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed). Why I wrote this program ? What can it do ? -------------------------------------------- I wrote this program because a friend of mine (Bill T) suggested that I write the program. We discussed the idea a lot in a bunch of email converstations we had in June 2002. Bill had searched the internet and couldn't find any program that could do anything like this. So, I played around with the idea that night and over the coming weekends, and pretty soon Keyboard Mapper was written. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a directory - such as c:\Keyboard_Mapper\ - and run the executable file : Keyboard_Mapper.EXE. When the program runs, you will see a diagram of half a standard IBM Compatible PC 107 Key Keyboard The scroll bar at the bottom on the window allows you to move left / right around the keyboard. If you left mouse click on the "Key Label" of any key, then you can type in a new description for the key. For example you could click on the "P" key and change the label to "High Punch", and then click on the "K" key and change the label to "Low Kick". Using the Menu Options provided, you can : ************************** "File" Menu ************************** - Save the Keyboard Layout to File - Load Keyboard Layout - Load the Key Font Settings from Another Keyboard Layout File - Load the Key Labels from Another Keyboard Layout File - Load the Key Colour Settings from Another Keyboard Layout File - Save the Keyboard Layout to a Bitmap file You can then load this into a word processor or a picture editing program and add headers / footers and other labels, as you require, and print it, or PDF it, or create a WEB page out of it, etc. - Copy the Keyboard Layout to Windows Clipboard as Bitmap file You can then paste this into a word processor or a picture editing program and add headers / footers and other labels, as you require, and print it, or PDF it, or create a WEB page out of it, etc. ************************** "Erase" Menu ************************** - Erase Function Key labels - Erase Main Keyboard Labels - Erase Cursor Control Labels - Erase Numeric Keypad Labels - Erase All Labels ************************** "Set" Menu ************************** - Set Function Key labels - Set Main Keyboard Labels - Set Cursor Control Labels - Set Numeric Keypad Labels - Set All Labels To A Default Value ************************** "Fonts / Colours" Menu ************************** - Keyboard Map Title Font - Group Names Font - Key Names Font - Key Labels Font - Select Key Colour - Select Key Border Colour - Set Key Label Vertical Alignment to Top, Center, or Bottom All of these options are also available on Context Sensitive right mouse click popup menus. So, for example, if you right mouse click on anything in the Function Keys area, then a popup menu of functions / options specific to function keys will be displayed. And, as with all of my programs, there are the standard options : ************************** "File" Menu ************************** - Always On Top - Auto-Run at Windows Startup - Restore Factory Defaults ************************** "About" Menu ************************** - View Readme file - View Shareware Catalog - About I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. About the Included Sample Keyboard Maps : ----------------------------------------- Included with the program are two sample keyboard maps : - MAME Flashy - with funky fonts and bright colours - MAME Conservative - with standard fonts and grey colours Using Keyboard Mapper, it took me about 1 minute to create the Flashy keyboard map, and it took about 20 seconds for me to convert this to the Conservative keyboard map. The Flashy layout uses funky fonts like Planetary Orbiter, Stop, and Showcard Gothic - and if your PC does not have these installed - and there is a good chance it wont - then Windows will replace the font with something that is hopefully similar - but this may produce poor results. As such, these fonts are available for download in the Keyboard Mapper section of my WEB page, and you can unzip them to the Windows' Fonts directory on your PC. Normally, this is the c:\Windows\Fonts\ directory. These fonts will allow you to see the keyboard map as it is meant to appear. (For those who don't know, MAME (http://www.mame.net) stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and it is an incredibly clever piece of software that lets you run old video arcade games on your PC, MAC, etc. In my opinion, MAME is the most amazing and exciting software development project on the planet). Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- At the present time, there is No Uninstall function. If you ever want to delete Keyboard Mapper from your computer, then : 1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed it on your harddrive. Simple as that ! The Future : ------------ Like all of my programs, I've got tons of ideas for this program. In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : **** Relatively Easy Changes : - An "American" version - so the word "Colour" is (mis)spelt as "Color" in the menus / prompts / etc to keep people in the USA happy ... ;) - Add the ability to hide / show the numeric keypad, cursor control keys, or function keys. - Add support for logos / icons - so you could add your logo to the keyboard layout. - Add support for different key designs. e.g. square edged instead of round edged. **** Medium Difficultly Changes : - Add support for a simulated isometric keyboard view. To illustrate, here is a rough diagram of what I mean : ---- ----- ---- | Q | | || Y || | | P | |---- | |-----| | ----| |_____| |_____| |_____| Keys on the left Keys in the center Keys on the right side of the Keyboard of the Keyboard side of the Keyboard - Add the ability to save directly to GIF, JPG, or other types of graphic file - instead of simply saving to a Bitmap. - Add support for diming / fading of unused keys. This will mean that keys that have a description will stand out more. - Add support for changing the colours / fonts for individual keys. So, for example, you could make the "ESC" key stand out more than other keys. - Add the ability to Print the Keyboard Layout. - Add the ability to move / swap key labels by dragging and dropping one key onto another. - Make it so that you can click anywhere on the key and you will be prompted to enter a new label. At the moment, you need to click on the label area (bottom two-thirds) of each key. **** Much More Difficult / Time Consuming Changes : - Add support for different keyboard layouts. - Add the ability to define your own keyboard layouts / designs. - Add the ability to rotate keys. e.g. to enable you to do layouts for the Microsoft Natural Keyboard and other funky keyboards. - Add support for keyboards in non-Eglish keyboards / layouts. e.g. Arabic keyboard. - Add support for a graphic for each key - so you could have a very detailed and very precise image of each key. - Anything else ? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. Some of the above enhancements / changes will require many dozens of hours of work. The "Much More Difficult Changes" may never be done, or, otherwise, when they are done, the program's price may increase very significantly, as these changes will require an enormous amount of work. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, etc. Special Thanks To : ------------------- Special thanks go to Bill T who thought up the idea for this program and inspired me to write it. Bill also made many of the suggestions that appear in the "Much More Difficult Changes" category in "The Future" section above, so he has tried his best to commit me to months of work !! ;)) Thanks for all of your enthusiasm, ideas, feedback, and support Bill. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : ------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 01-July-2002 First Public Release. Special thanks to Bill T - see above. (22,761 lines of code / comments.) 1.0b 20-Nov-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. Registered Users - please contact me via email. (32,488 lines of code / comments.) 1.0f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________