How to swap key functions?

April 23, 2010 6:15 AM

Is it possible to switch the colon and semicolon key functions in Windows Vista?

I have a co-worker who'd like to have the colon be the default result of the key press, and then shift for the semicolon, to save a little bit of time with her work. I understand how to do a key swap, like switching the semicolon key for the apostrophe key, or shutting off Caps Lock, but I haven't found anything on swapping the functions within a key. Can anyone help? Thanks.

posted by tjbarrett to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

There are keyboards that allow for this sort of thing -- Razer is one brand -- that are made for gaming that allow you to program key functions. I've never tried it for something this specific (more like W = move forward) but who knows?

But putting on my usability analyst hat, if your coworker has spent more than 2 hours on a keyboard in her entire life, she is NOT going to take to that change as well as she thinks she is. Muscle memory is a VERY powerful thing.
posted by citywolf at 6:23 AM on April 23, 2010

Best answer: This page seems to have a lot of key remapping solutions.
posted by bitdamaged at 6:30 AM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks! Don't know how I missed that one. :)
posted by tjbarrett at 7:03 AM on April 23, 2010

Scancode remapping solutions will let you move the colon/semicolon key to another location on the keyboard, but won't let you easily switch colon and semicolon. To do that you will need something like AutoHotKey. The script below should do the trick:

$+;:: Send {Shift Up};{Shift Down}
$;:: Send {Shift Down};{Shift Up}

Install AutoHotKey, save the above two lines in a text file as "swapcolon.ahk", right-click it and choose "Compile Script" from the context menu. You will end up with an exe file that, when run, will implement the desired behavior.
posted by kindall at 11:07 AM on April 23, 2010