I want to remap § to ` and ± to ~ on my Mac keyboard because they are located in a place I am not used to.
Is there an easy way to do this?
MacOS – Easy way to remap non-modifier keys on Mac
keyboardmacos
Related Solutions
Changing preferences and running, defaults -currentHost read -g shows you what changes are being written. I was going to write up a short bash script to automate it, but it looks like I was beaten to the punch:
#!/bin/bash
mappingplist=com.apple.keyboard.modifiermapping
if [ $1 == "emacs" ]; then
echo "Switching to emacs modifiers"
defaults -currentHost write -g $mappingplist '(
{
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst = 4;
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc = 2; },
{
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst = 12;
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc = 10;
},
{
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst = 2;
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc = 4;
},
{
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst = 10;
HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc = 12;
})'
else
echo "Switching to default modifiers"
defaults -currentHost delete -g $mappingplist
fi
The script takes one argument, if the argument is emacs, then it swaps command and control, if the argument is anything else it restores the defaults.
ControllerMate does this. At work I use the Microsoft Natural ergonomic keyboard and a Logitech mouse. ControllerMate has hardware profiles for both, and I have many of the MS-specific keys remapped to other functions.
Like yours, my keyboard also has an otherwise useless Mail button. With Controllermate open, if I press the Mail button while viewing the Microsoft keyboard profile, the list of available key sequences automatically jumps to the one it just received. You can then program that key to do whatever you like, even when ControllerMate isn't open.
Best Answer
The two apps most commonly used to do this are
Ukelele
and
Karabiner
There’s a lot of other options, but these are the easiest in practice for most people to just manage their layouts easily.