French keyboard layout for Windows
Posted: 4. May 2010, 13:01
Hi all,
this post is just for contributing a FRENCH keyboard layout for Windows guest VMs so that what you see on your MBP's keyboard is indeed what the apps receive in the VM.
I spent a couple of hours reading the VirtualBox manual, searching the web and downloading things before succeeding. Here's what I did:
- downloaded an existing layout for Mac from florentpillet dot com. It wasn't perfect because the "@#" key (left of "&1") was outputting "<>" (left of "w"), and vice-versa (I'm using a unibody 15" MBP).
- downloaded and installed Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MKLC)
- exchanged the keys that were apparently switched
- built the setup package from the layout creator
- added the keyboard layout to the package and zipped it.
Just click setup.exe to install the keyboard. Alternatively, you may also download the MKLC from MSDN and repeat the changes I made. You'll notice that the '@' and '<' characters are correctly placed on the diagram shown in the MKLC, but when trying them, the key that's tagged '@' on your physical keyboard and on the virtual one outputs a '<'. To have the '@' key translate to a '@' in the Win VM, you'll need to tag the virtual '<' with '@'. Vice-versa. And don't forget the "Shift" shiftstate.
Last thing, the keyboard layout is labeled 'fr_CH' because this allows "Shift+é" to yield a "2" while "CAPS LOCK+é" yields a "É". In fr_FR, "CAPS LOCK+é" yields the same as "Shift+é".
this post is just for contributing a FRENCH keyboard layout for Windows guest VMs so that what you see on your MBP's keyboard is indeed what the apps receive in the VM.
I spent a couple of hours reading the VirtualBox manual, searching the web and downloading things before succeeding. Here's what I did:
- downloaded an existing layout for Mac from florentpillet dot com. It wasn't perfect because the "@#" key (left of "&1") was outputting "<>" (left of "w"), and vice-versa (I'm using a unibody 15" MBP).
- downloaded and installed Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MKLC)
- exchanged the keys that were apparently switched
- built the setup package from the layout creator
- added the keyboard layout to the package and zipped it.
Just click setup.exe to install the keyboard. Alternatively, you may also download the MKLC from MSDN and repeat the changes I made. You'll notice that the '@' and '<' characters are correctly placed on the diagram shown in the MKLC, but when trying them, the key that's tagged '@' on your physical keyboard and on the virtual one outputs a '<'. To have the '@' key translate to a '@' in the Win VM, you'll need to tag the virtual '<' with '@'. Vice-versa. And don't forget the "Shift" shiftstate.
Last thing, the keyboard layout is labeled 'fr_CH' because this allows "Shift+é" to yield a "2" while "CAPS LOCK+é" yields a "É". In fr_FR, "CAPS LOCK+é" yields the same as "Shift+é".
