2nd keyboard

[zswobbie1]

Hi guys, I am using a 2nd USB keyboard in FS9,(sloping vertically upright) & I have remapped the keys using FSUIPC & some assignments from within FS9 and the keyboard is now pretty full. Am I correct in saying that FS9 & FSUIPC will only recognise 1x keyboard? I have seen some macro type progs that will program a 2nd keyboard but it is very unwieldly. My ideal would be to map some of the shift + whatever key to a single key on the 2nd keyboard.

A wish to see another tab labled keyboard 2 in the settings menu of FSUIPC.

B.T.W. Mouse trim is awsome. Some of the guys at our VA club are using a second USB mouse for trim only.

[Pete Dowson]

Hi guys, I am using a 2nd USB keyboard in FS9,(sloping vertically upright) & I have remapped the keys using FSUIPC & some assignments from within FS9 and the keyboard is now pretty full. Am I correct in saying that FS9 & FSUIPC will only recognise 1x keyboard?

Yes, except that it isn't FS9 or FSUIPC doing the recognising, but Windows. Each key has a fixed keycode, and it is the keycodes which are sent as messages by Windows (WM_KEYDOWN and WM_KEYUP messages). If it sent different keycodes for different keyboards they'd look like different keys -- but that might not work either because there's a fixed list of Key Codes and programs generally wouldn't recognise one not listed as standard. As it is there's only room for 255 keycodes in any case, and that has to include NUM LOCK differences.

My ideal would be to map some of the shift + whatever key to a single key on the 2nd keyboard.

Why not simple glue the shift key down on it, then, making all the keys shifted by default?

Shift doesn't change the keycode, it only indicates the shift key is down too. Same with Ctrl, Alt, Alt Gr and the three Windows effects keys. It is possible to distinguish between left and right control and shift keys too, but not many programs do as it is usually too unwieldy for users.

A wish to see another tab labled keyboard 2 in the settings menu of FSUIPC.

Not impossible maybe, taking over the keyboard completely as an input device with DirectInput, but it is very far from easy and would involve a huge amount of work,to make FSUIPC's keyboard input work like FS's joystick input. Check this: http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/292328.aspx . It does mention something about "raw input", but whilst that applies to joysticks and so on, I've never found anything of the sort for keyboards, and this:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPo4&SiteID=1 argues how difficult it is. Even if it was done in FSUIPC, the keys would first be seen by FS in their normal state, just as joystick buttons and axes aren't exclusively ownable unless you get down to driver replacement.

Regards

Pete