Windows – Going from Windows to Mac – Want identical hotkeys

macmacoswindows

I'm a windows developer, recently I'm having to work on a Mac in order to develop for iPhone.

Long story short, I want all the hotkeys to be identical to windows to my already "learned" hotkeys stay the same.

Is there an application to allow me to do this? Or can I just set this up through the standard keyboard settings?

For example, I want Ctrl+C/V to copy/paste, Alt+Tab to switch windows, End/Home to go to the end of a line and not the end of a file (Mac Ctrl+Right Arrow/Left Arrow).

I'm on Mac OS X 10.6 (I think called Snow leopard).

My best solution so far:

Use synergy and 1 keyboard to transition from Windows to Mac. It maps the windows hotkeys correctly to mac, and allows me to use 1 keyboard/mouse between 2 machines! There is some unix knowledged required to make this work on startup, as I had to write a .sh shell script to make it happen on the Mac.

I'm marking the top answer as the solution, as it led me to this option.

Best Answer

You can map the keyboard to your liking. System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard and then Modifier Keys. I don't think there is any "app" or more universal method.

For example you can map the Ctrl to the Command key, and use the "Ctrl" key like the "command key" (so now ctrl+c is copy, etc.).... but then Ctrl+tab will now be the equivalent of alt-tab functionality which you might not want.

You can also set keyboard shortcuts for specific applications using System Preferences -> Keyboard -> keyboard shortcuts. It probably won't affect general hotkeys as a whole.

It's two different OSes, and in the long run if you expect to stay on the Mac platform just getting used to the Command key might be a better idea.

Btw, on Snow Leopard Ctrl+right arrow and Ctrl+left arrow is usually used for Spaces. The key combo for moving to beginning/end of lines is Command+arrow I think.

In Xcode it behaves differently, and instead just jumps words: You could probably map a keyboard shortcut via Sys Prefs or just use the default Command+ left and Command+right (or Ctrl+A and Ctrl+E) to go to the beginning and ends of a line.

EDIT you could also use the occasional hotkey program, I suggest looking around superuser for the "remap keys on OS X" type questions, since a lot of answers suggest programs. I personally don't know of any since I don't use any.

For such apps to use to change keyboard shortcuts, this superuser thread might be useful if you're looking for something similar to AutoHotKeys

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