News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

October 22, 2007

software

Double double your command enjoyment

Posted Oct. 22, ’07, 8:24 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

DoubleCommandI love my MacBook’s keyboard: I find it comfortable to type on, nicely responsive, and, let’s face it, pretty darn sexy. But laptop keyboards always have some tradeoffs from their larger models. On the MacBook, one of those sacrifices is a second Option key—instead, we get an Enter key (note that on the new Apple Keyboards, both wired and wireless, users get a second option key instead). But what if you want that second option key?

Mon ami Jason reminded me of a fantastic preference pane, DoubleCommand, which solves this and loads of other keyboard mapping dilemmas. Want to remap that Enter key to a command key? Control key? Swap your Control and Option keys? Done, done, and done. Disable the Caps Lock? Yes, please. DoubleCommand fixes all of these problems with ease; all the developer, Michael Baltaks, asks from you is a donation.


4 Comments

Anonymous said:

I bought a macbook pro for my father a month back. Being used to the windows world all his life, He hates the fact that there is no fwd delete on the macbook pro. I have a question before i suggest this utility to him. Will remapping the enter key to forward delete, change only the secondary enter button or also the main return/enter button? Sorry if the question seems stupid. Since the main *return* button also has *enter* written on it, I would like to be sure before i get him all excited :).

October 22, 2007 8:53 AM
Dan Moren Author Profile Page said:

@Anonymous: Just for you, dear reader, I gave it a try. It'll just remap the enter key, not the return key (the enter you see on that is telling you that when you activate NumLock, it acts as the Enter key on the numeric keypad). Enjoy!

October 22, 2007 9:04 AM
Anonymous said:

Thanks Dan. That was great help. Mailed my dad as soon as I read your reply.

On a side note - even though i was signed in, my earlier comment went through as 'Anonymous'. Just wanted to let you know in case its a bug.

October 22, 2007 10:48 AM
Teilas Author Profile Page said:

It might be worth noting that some basic key mapping functionality for modifier keys (caps lock, control, option, command) is available in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane. If you're just looking to turn off the caps lock key or swap control and option, no third-party tool is needed.

October 22, 2007 6:26 PM

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