Factorio Forums

I use a DVORAK keyboard, so the inventory key (usually "E", which is period "." on my keyboard) and the drop/eyedropper key (usually "Q", which is apostrophe " ' " on my keyboard) don't actually enter those characters when typing into the console/chat, but they either bring up the GUI or try to eyedropper. This makes it pretty hard to use contractions and end sentences.

Perhaps the devs could break out all keys except for the chat key and escape while in chat mode so that they do not activate GUI elements.

Thanks!

Did you map it to . and ' manually, or is that what the default was? (looking at a picture of the keyboard layout, probably default. It feels odd to have a "Backwards" layout like that compared to a QWERTY keyboard. (and by backwards I simply mean that most of the punctuation keys are in the upper left, rather than lower right.))

Something tells me it's a little less to do with the keyboard you are using, and a little more to do with what the keys are mapped to, changing those keys to letters rather than symbols might help.

I'm not saying it's not a bug, just making a suggestion for a work around.

(Why the heck is it called DVORAK anyway? most keyboards are named by the layout of the first 6 keys on the top line. Perhaps they looked elsewhere for the name because 3 of those keys are punctuation?)

bobingabout wrote:(Why the heck is it called DVORAK anyway? most keyboards are named by the layout of the first 6 keys on the top line. Perhaps they looked elsewhere for the name because 3 of those keys are punctuation?)

Because it's a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak

I did map them myself, along with all the other hotkeys. I am on Linux Mint.

Things get exceptionally weird when I change the keyboard layout back to QWERTY without changing the hotkeys. The chat line gets QWERTY keystrokes, but all of my remapped hotkeys work EXCEPT "E" (which Factorio still interprets, apparently, as a period, which brings up the inventory even when in chat). For example, with PERIOD being the inventory key, and a QWERTY layout, typing "QWERTY" into the chat line eyedroppers, types a W, opens the inventory, and types the last TY.

I guess all I'm asking for is better input support. I'm not sure how it works currently, or what best practices are, but maybe take hotkeys from raw keyboard input (so they don't change when the input mapping changes), and take the OS layout for the chat window and other text-based elements (without bringing up gui elements when you press hotkeys, of course).

Hi, Dvorak user here on Windows 10, same problem with inventory key (. in Dvorak). The apostrophe doesn't happen though.

That does sound like a bug

I have no problem with Colemak myself, but then it only moves letters (relative to Qwerty). I can recommend Colemak over Dvorak if you're looking for a more comfortable keyboard layout (I tried both).

I don't understand what you're saying is broken. All we do is listen for key codes from the operating system and react accordingly. If you've changed your keyboard layout it shouldn't matter as it should just send the key codes you're pressing and Factorio will react to them accordingly.

I think I understand him. On DVORAK keyboard-layout (see pic below):

when he presses "." (which is "E" on normal keyboard, but nvm.) in console, he wants to type a "." but instead he opens the inventory.

On a QWERTZ (german version), when you want to write an "Ö" it closes the console, caused in the options by the standard console button "GRAVE", which is the Ö on german QWERTZ

I think that factorio listens to keys but not to their local meaning or non QWERTY layouted Keyboards

I have an AZERTY keyboard and it works just fine for me. I still hate the fact that I have to remap half of the predefined controls but it's not really a bug. With AZERTY WASD becomes ZQSD, but the controls remain WASD, so I have to map "move up" to "Z" instead of "W" for example.
I wish Factorio had predefined controls depending on the localization/keyboard config (I don't know how AAA games manage to deal with this, but they do) but that's another topic.

Are you sure Windows has the proper settings for your keyboard?

c0bRa wrote:I think I understand him. On DVORAK keyboard-layout (see pic below):

when he presses "." (which is "E" on normal keyboard, but nvm.) in console, he wants to type a "." but instead he opens the inventory.

On a QWERTZ (german version), when you want to write an "Ö" it closes the console, caused in the options by the standard console button "GRAVE", which is the Ö on german QWERTZ

I think that factorio listens to keys but not to their local meaning or non QWERTY layouted Keyboards

That makes no sense. If you press "E" then it will send the keycode for "E", if you press "." it will send the keycode for ".". We don't care what physical key is pressed on a keyboard - we simply listen for key codes.

It sounds like what ever you're using to re-map the keyboard is doing it wrong such that it's being re-mapped *after* programs already processed the key action.

I think, that should be solved with:
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=48162

It should be fixed in the next version.