Karabiner-elements: Swapped key in Spanish ISO: "ºª" vs "<>"

[d4nirod]

When using Karabiner Elements on a MBP Sierra with a Spanish ISO keyboard and the same input source selected in MacOS the symbols printed by the key with Spanish ordinal "º" ("ª" with shift) located left to the "1" and the key for "<" or ">" located left of the "Z" are swapped. If I quit Karabiner the problem is gone.

[JZfi]

The same happens with a Finnish key layout both on the MBP's own keyboard and with external keyboards. The key left from Z (<>) and left from 1 (¶°) are swapped when Karabiner Elements is running. The OSX version is 10.12.6 and I'm running 11.1.0. This has happened for a longer time spanning many previous Karabiner Element versions.

[eMerzh]

Hi,
seems i got the same thing in french, >< remapped to @# (bellow the esc key)

did you guys found a work arround ?

[bytesplit]

I made this adjustment and everything is as expected now:
Preferences > Virtual Keyboard > Keyboard Type : Set to ISO

German layout Cherry PC-keyboard and configured as such in OS. It seems that by default Karabiner makes all keyboards ANSI.

[eMerzh]

💥 perfect @bytesplit ... forks for me! many thanks

[mkborregaard]

doesn't work for me.

[eMerzh]

eratum: it work but only for one of my keyboard, it's either the internal either the external.... not both

[bytesplit]

I actually deactivated Karabiner in Devices for the internal keyboard. I don't use it when I have the external connected (think docked) and it would indeed reverse-swap the keys. Seems like Apple thinks ANSI for it's own international keyboards.

So test with all attached keyboards!

[pascalpoizat]

same problem than @eMerzh :-(

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[MonsieurLanza]

Those keys are swapped here in FR ISO Macbook Keyboard here. Same keys, different labels due to FR layout : @# and <> are swapped.

[deram]

For my Finnish MBP keyboard, ANSI is the correct setting, and it is ISO that gives swapped characters. for example the mentioned <> vs. §°

All seems fine with ANSI setting selected, except the mapping is different from the picture next to the radio-button.

[OMA2k]

Hello everyone. The solution @bytesplit mentioned used to work (Preferences > Virtual Keyboard > Keyboard Type : Set to ISO), but recent versions of Karabiner-Elements don't have any ANSI/ISO option anymore so the swapped keys problem still remains.

Now in the "Virtual Keyboard" tab you can just specify a numeric "Country Code", and I don't know what number I should specify. How do I find what's the proper number for the Spanish keyboard layout?

[OMA2k]

@ohcibi : What "patch note" are you referring to? I've already done the "Change keyboard type" several times, but I still get the swapped keys when Karabiner is running.

What "wrong" keyboard are you selecting so it works correctly when Karabiner is running?

[OMA2k]

This unfortunately doesn't work for me.

If I try to detect the keyboard while Karabiner-Elements is running, when I press "><" I get the message "The keyboard can't be identified".

If I try to detect the keyboard with Karabiner-Elements closed, then it works, but even if I select ANSI instead of ISO, the "><" and "ªº" keys are swapped no matter if I run Karabiner-Elements or not (for some reason Karabiner doesn't spontaneously swap the keys in ANSI mode, only in ISO mode).

To sum up:

• In ISO mode, "><" and "ªº" keys are swapped only when Karabiner-Elements is running.
• In ANSI mode, "><" and "ªº" keys are swapped no matter if Karabiner-Elements is running or not.

So I don't have the proper keys unless in ISO mode and with Karabiner-Elements closed.

Also, for some stupid reason only Apple knows, after using it a few times, the "Change Keyboard Type..." button has completely DISAPPEARED from the Keyboard settings window! Now I can't use that button because it doesn't exist. WTF?!

Any suggestions?

[e-gaulue]

I add exactly this trouble but with a french keyboard. You need to reset your keyboard type. Have a look at https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/issues/1365#issuecomment-392009895.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[OMA2k]

This problem is still happening with the latest 12.1.5 version of Karabiner-Elements. The <> and ºª keys are still swapped in the Spanish keyboard. Please, fix it!!!

[vladdeSV]

This issue is happening at 12.2.2, with a Swedish MacBook Pro keyboard layout

§° and <> are swapped respectively.

[OMA2k]

@ohcibi What better tool are you talking about?

[OMA2k]

I see. You could have typed "BetterTouchTool", which is the actual name of the app, rather than "better touch tool" all lowercase and with spaces between the words, which didn't look like an app name at all but just a passing comment about some "better touch tool". I ignored the "touch" part in my comment because that didn't make sense to me when we're talking about keyboards.

For people reading this, here's the link of the app's website: https://folivora.ai/

The pricing is not bad at all. $6.50 for 2 years of updates (and you can keep using the app after that period even if you don't get any more updates), or $20 for a lifetime license which also gives you access to other apps as well included in the price.

Sorry for the somewhat off-topic post, but this is relevant when the developer of Karabiner-Elements won't listen to our bug report at all!

[OMA2k]

Did you really get offended by my comment? I just suggested you could have called it like it's actually called by its author, BetterTouchTool. I didn't mean to tick you off ;).
BTW, thanks for suggesting this app.

Well, I have tried it, but I can't seem to get it to do what I need: Globally swapping the Ctrl key and the Cmd key. The keyboard part in this app seems to be focused in shortcuts rather than single keys. Do you know how to configure this to swap these modifier keys?

[OMA2k]

@ohcibi And now you delete all of your posts here? Just because of a single innocent suggestion on the spelling of the app you mentioned? So you're removing useful information for everyone just because you somehow got offended by a light unimportant comment I made. Some people get so easily offended...

At least people can still read my message about the name of the app and link to their website.

[OMA2k]

Well, bad news for me and anyone who wants to remap keys: One of the admins at the BetterTouchTool website told me that "BetterTouchTool is not a good tool for key remappings. You should consider using Karabiner Elements app for that"

Heh, yeah, so we're back to square zero :(

This issue has been plaguing a lot of users since at least 2 years ago. I hope the Karabiner-Elements developer can notice us and take a look at this issue.

[OMA2k]

A couple of months and several updates later the problem still remains.

Why is this issue closed? This issue has NOT been resolved at all!!! :(

[AlexLeaP]

I solved it (Germany, ^ swapped with ): I just randomly entered a 7 as the keyboard country code. The Mac then says my keyboard is not identified, so I click on identify; asks me to press the key next to Shift; asks me to select between ANSI, ISO or JIS, I select ISO and tadaaaa everything fine again! Hope this helps someone else as well!

[vtselfa]

Hi, you have a list of country codes to use here.
For spanish is 25. The only problem is that it may mess with your macbook keyboard, so when you want to use it you may have to change the code back to 0.