Powertoys: Add option to allow keymapping to "character" and not just keycode

[NoFuchsGavin]

📝 Provide a description of the new feature

So I am a german user and we du have umlauts in our language. As I am a developer I like to use an US international keyboard. But sometimes I need to write letters/mails to my colleagues and therefor need to write those kind of letters: öäü

I thought why not remap some keycombinations to those umlauts so I don't have to remember the ASCII codes and stuff any time.
So I created a mapping for the umlauts (keyboard set to 'german') like:

That works flawless until I change the keyboard to "US international":

It changes all the assigned combinations to the equivalent kezcodes for the us keyboard. This is unfortunate and I want the mapping to consider using the original characters typed into the mapping screen.

_What is the expected behavior of the proposed feature? What is the scenario this would be used?_

Keep the original characters for the mapping or add the possibility to use a numblock mapping like: alt + 132

https://textentwicklerin.de/glossary/umlaute/

If you'd like to see this feature implemented, add a 👍 reaction to this post.

[enricogior]

@NoFuchsGavin
just to clarify, your suggestion is add the functionality of mapping to "letter" not to replace the current mapping because that would remove a useful functionality.
Changing the title to reflect the clarification.

[NoFuchsGavin]

@NoFuchsGavin
just to clarify, your suggestion is add the functionality of mapping to "letter" not to replace the current mapping because that would remove a useful functionality.
Changing the title to reflect the clarification.

Yes, add a functionality to define "characters/letters" instead of keycodes. Maybe adding keycombination sequences aswell like: ALT + 153 (on the numblock) or something like that.

Do not remove the existing keycode remapping, because that's a fine and usefull feature

[ghost]

@enricogior Can you change "letter" to "character" in the title?

[Jay-o-Way]

Just out of curiosity: @NoFuchsGavin does it not work when you use so called dead keys? Like, press Shift+' (should equal ") and then a vowel?

[Shwaolin]

I'm having the exact same "problem". German developer who needs to use umlauts from time to time
+1

[baddyp]

This would solve my problem - my new keyboard doesn't have the pipe symbol. Obviously an alternative solution in my case would be to add the pipe symbol in the list of available key remap values.

[Jay-o-Way]

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