Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Discussion of bugs and problems found in Altap Salamander. In your reports, please be as descriptive as possible, and report one incident per report. Do not post crash reports here, send us the generated bug report by email instead, please.
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SvA
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Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

Hi,

I am not sure whether this is the default setting, but I use SHIFT+drive-letter to switch between drives. However, when Caps Lock is activated, AS treats the letter key without the Shift key pressed as it's hotkey.

On old, mechanical typewriters, the caps lock key used to be a retainer for the shift key, and used to switch even the digit's to the punctuation marks and symbols placed on the same keys. Those days are fortunately gone.

So, likewise, there is, in my opinion, no reason to expect the c-key to be treated as the Shift+c hotkey combination just because caps lock is activated.

Could you please change that behavior.
Jan Rysavy
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

I will move this topic to Problems and Troubleshooting section. Is anyone else able to reproduce this problem? Is it related to some national keyboard settings?

On my computer I must press Shift+letter for Change drive shortcut and it is not dependent on state of Caps Lock.

We are using WM_SYSKEYDOWN event, wParam value for drive letter and following test for Shift key detection: if ((GetKeyState(VK_SHIFT) & 0x8000) != 0) ...

Looks like GetKeyState is not working properly on your computer.
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SvA
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

Hi Jan,

thanks for your investigation and reply.
I use German windows. It' the same behavior for German (Germany) locale, both with deutsch and deutsch (IBM) layout. It is also the same with English (USA) locale and it's default layout US. This is tested on Windows 7 Professional.
The incident that triggered my writing the initial post happened on a Window 8 Business installation with German (Germany) locale and deutsch (IBM) layout.
I am pretty sure I noticed this on XP and Vista before also.

When I said "I am not sure whether this is the default setting, but I use SHIFT+drive-letter to switch between drives." I vaguely remembered that there is some option that may cause conflicts with national keyboard layouts. I searched for it now and it is "Use Shift+number for go to Hot Path (Is conflicts with national keyboard layouts). If things worked as you say, why is this one different, and why should there be potential conflicts here?

In the link, you provided, there is a comment that may help:
Uray M. János wrote:Return value
Just to clarify the meaning of the bits, the function returns:
0 if the key is neither down nor toggled,
-127 if the key is down but not toggled,
1 if the key is toggled but up, and
-128 if the key is both toggled and down.
Though the Shift key is not a toggle, it might be considered toggled by the Caps Lock key.
Jan Rysavy
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

I just tested this problem on Windows 8.1 x64 German and still I'm not able to reproduce it. Could anyone reproduce it?
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SvA
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

I can't believe no one can reproduce this. If so, certainly someone can tell me how to fix this on my end.

With any AS version from 2.50 to 3.0 I checked, on any OS version from XP to Win 8 including server versions (not each end every one tested), regardless of x86 or x64, regardless of whether i customized AS and/or the OS, -- this invariably happens to me. The only common denominator being: German windows with some German Keyboard installed as default (though not necessarily used).

Maybe you do not try what I am talking about? Here my instructions to reproduce.
  1. Start Altap Salamander
  2. Click into one of the file panels
  3. Make sure capslock is activated
  4. Press the letter key corresponding to the drive letter of any drive in your system other than the currently displayed one (e.g. press [d] when some directory in C: is listed); do net press any modifier keys simultaneously. ==> the drive listed in the pane changes.
  5. Now press the letter key of your former drive, simultaneously pressing the Shift modifier key ==> AS starts Quicksearch with that letter
Jan Rysavy
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

That is exactly what I'm trying. The problem could be in keyboard: I have only Czech and English keyboards.

Idea: Do you have some non-German keyboard for test?
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SvA
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

Do you talk about the hardware?
If I am not mistaken you just exchange the key caps.
thomas
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by thomas »

I've tested:

Logitech Deluxe 250 Keyboard (USB) on a Windows XP SP3 32 bit operating system.
Logitech Media Keyboard (PS2) on a Windows 7 SP1 64 bit operating sytem.
Logitech Media Keyboard (PS2) on a Windows 8.1 64 bit operating system.

No problems here.
Last edited by thomas on 25 Apr 2014, 18:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

SvA wrote:Do you talk about the hardware?
If I am not mistaken you just exchange the key caps.
Yes, I mean hardware.
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

Could you please try Windows 8 virtual keyboard? Open it from the taskbar, have Caps Lock ON, click some letter. I'm getting quick search mode as you can see at attached screenshot. The D: is a valid disk, it is opened in the second panel.
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SvA
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

I now tried the virtual keyboard. It works as you said. The caps lock key does not influence the hot key combination.

I could not find any non-German HW-keyboards available to me.
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SelfMan »

Check this registry entry and let us know what you have in there
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
"Scancode Map" key

This key should be ampty by defaut.

A value like "Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,3a,00,00,00,00,00 disables the CapsLock entirely.
(this is what I have used on my notebook)

Ah and BTW if this wont help, try to create a new user profile on your system and check the functionality there.
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SvA
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SvA »

Thanks. SelfMan, but that key or value is non-existent.

But I did something, that fixed it for my Win8 system. I changed the order of languages in the language control panel applet. I moved English (United States) to the top, then checked AS. The issue was gone. I changed it back, German (Germany) to the top again. The issue remained solved. I rebooted and the hotkey combination still works as expected. I am puzzled, but happy.
I will yet have to check the other machines with different versions.
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by SelfMan »

That looks like the registry has been broken and the reconfiguration fixed it. You might take an eye on it and report later.
If it happens again, try as I've suggested to create a new user account and test the configuration.
Jan Rysavy
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Re: Caps Lock and drive change hotkeys

Post by Jan Rysavy »

SvA, this problem looks strange. Please keep us informed if you find out what is going on.
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