Home & End Keys

[kristoferpetit 3]

Hi,

Random question, but my keyboard broke, and my spare doesn't have the home or end keys, which turns out to be pretty frustrating playing simcity. Anyone know a way around this? Just while i wait for a new keyboard.

[Fatherted 129]

You could place a 1x1 street tile in front of where you are building to turn it the appropriate way and then delete it and replace the appropriate side with the appropriate network...

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

If running Windows (XP or later), you could use the On-Screen Keyboard:

 

 

This can be accessed by opening the Run dialog and entering osk.exe

For it to work (is quite awkward), you might need to start the game in windowed mode by adding -w to your game's target shortcut.

[Lost Realist 762]

Ugh, those solutions are really ugly, just gues to show how screwed you are without those keys. I also don't have any further ideas, it's a shame you can't reconfigure the keyboard settings.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I find it hard to believe that these keys are absolutely not present on your replacement. Are you sure the corresponding functions cannot be accessed otherwise? On my notebook, for example, the "7" key on the number pad is "Home" and the "1" key is "End" - all I need to do is to press NumLock in order to toggle between the regular number pad and its secondary functions. Could you show a picture of your keyboard? Maybe we can figure out something.

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Ugh, those solutions are really ugly, just gues to show how screwed you are without those keys. I also don't have any further ideas, it's a shame you can't reconfigure the keyboard settings.

Yes, I must admit, its not the most user-friendly method.

 

A long time ago, there was some talk of a for SimCity 4. Not sure if anyone knows any more about this.

The mentioned tool is now unsupported, and seems to have issues running on modern systems.

[Lost Realist 762]

 

Ugh, those solutions are really ugly, just gues to show how screwed you are without those keys. I also don't have any further ideas, it's a shame you can't reconfigure the keyboard settings.

Yes, I must admit, its not the most user-friendly method.

 

 

Has nothing to do with you, though, it's a shortcoming on Maxis' part that you can't replace the layout.

 

Then again, T Wrecks might be right in that the numpad buttons might take over those functions - I also find a second set of home/end keys on 7 and 1.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

My number pad is so labelled.  I have a full keyboard with separate keys as well for these functions.  However, historically, the numeric keys in down-shift were in fact:

home, up arrow, pgup,

left, idle, right,

end,down,pgdn

 

Try turning off your numeric lock.

[kristoferpetit 3]

i can be very blind at times, the home and end keys are indeed on the number pad. I wouldn't of got there without your help, Thanks very much! Silly Kris!

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Ugh, those solutions are really ugly, just gues to show how screwed you are without those keys. I also don't have any further ideas, it's a shame you can't reconfigure the keyboard settings.

 

I did. Ages ago.

 

I've long since did a remapping of my SC4 hotkeys such that, 1, it used fewer single-key combinations (z for farm zoning, x for med-den industrial, etc), 2, the majority of the important hotkeys would be on the left side of the keyboard, and 3, it would be Colemak-compatible since I use a non-Qwerty keyboard (qwfpgjluyarstdhneiozxcvbkm as opposed to qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcbnm; if left as is, I would need to press E to build high-den residential, which would be on the right side of the keyboard, not the left).

 

Editing it, however, requires sufficient knowledge of using iLive's Reader and sufficient knowledge on finding where the KEYCFG files lie in the Simcity1.DAT file.

 

As it stands: Q, Shift+Q, and Alt+Shift+Q residential zoning instead of Q, W, and E (which would end up being on the right side of the keyboard, as previously mentioned); W and Shift+W for utility (water/power) lines; F and Alt+F for the two fire stations; P, Alt+P, and Shift+P for the police stations and jail, and so on.

[Kuewr665 40]

Can you only edit those that already have keyboard shortcuts or can new tools be added?

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Can you only edit those that already have keyboard shortcuts or can new tools be added?

 

There are two possibilities: Either the number of things that have hotkeys is predetermined by the exe or everything has hotkeys and it's impossible to find them all since there would be 4.29 billion IDs to search through (and it would literally take millennia to search). There could be things that could have hotkeys, but again, there's the issue of finding it.

 

So far, only existing hotkeys can be edited and it may be the case.

[mrbisonm 1,620]

Oh, c'mon now........geeeez, a simple keyboard can be bought on nearly every garagesale or used shop for less than 20 Dollars. I bought  a dozen 8 or 9 years ago for 60 bucks. Maybe one of your friends has one lying around in the attic or garage. I have.

 

mrb

[Durfsurn 539]

 

Ugh, those solutions are really ugly, just gues to show how screwed you are without those keys. I also don't have any further ideas, it's a shame you can't reconfigure the keyboard settings.

 

I did. Ages ago.

 

I've long since did a remapping of my SC4 hotkeys such that, 1, it used fewer single-key combinations (z for farm zoning, x for med-den industrial, etc), 2, the majority of the important hotkeys would be on the left side of the keyboard, and 3, it would be Colemak-compatible since I use a non-Qwerty keyboard (qwfpgjluyarstdhneiozxcvbkm as opposed to qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcbnm; if left as is, I would need to press E to build high-den residential, which would be on the right side of the keyboard, not the left).

 

Editing it, however, requires sufficient knowledge of using iLive's Reader and sufficient knowledge on finding where the KEYCFG files lie in the Simcity1.DAT file.

 

As it stands: Q, Shift+Q, and Alt+Shift+Q residential zoning instead of Q, W, and E (which would end up being on the right side of the keyboard, as previously mentioned); W and Shift+W for utility (water/power) lines; F and Alt+F for the two fire stations; P, Alt+P, and Shift+P for the police stations and jail, and so on.

 

What is the 0xYYYYYYY code? How do you change the keys to something else in the KEYCFG files in SimCity1.dat.

 

Eg:

Left                    = 0x6a935cd8   "Scroll left"

What does 0x6a935cd8 mean? Do I have to change it as well as "Left" to for example "P"?

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

Eg:

Left                    = 0x6a935cd8   "Scroll left"

What does 0x6a935cd8 mean? Do I have to change it as well as "Left" to for example "P"?

The ID you're seeing... Leave it as is; it shouldn't be changed at all.

[Durfsurn 539]

So all I do is change "Left"? 

[Ganaram Inukshuk 906]

So all I do is change "Left"?

The comments near the top of the keycfg file you're looking at tells you what keys are valid. Anything that's A-Z, 0-9, numberpad keys, and so on. There are a few conditions; for example, if you wanna have the semicolon as a hotkey, it has to be typed out as "Semicolon", and "up"/"down" and "Up"/"Down" (spelling counts!!!) account for two different things.

[Durfsurn 539]

Thanks  

[timmie 988]

I use fn-right arrow or fn-left arrow when I'm playing Simcity in Windows on my Mac. But that might be a Mac-thing, I don't know if this is the same on all keyboards?