[MSKLC] How do I created my custom keyboard layout and remap ALL keys with MSKLC in Windows 10

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0. Intruduction

Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator is the best application in Windows platform to manipulate keyboard layout. It permits you to change your keyboard layout in a standard way which is fully compatible with Windows system (including Windows 10) at the level of VK code (i.e. Virtual Key code.). The most important is, even the application itself does not permit remapping modifer keys (Ctrl, Alt, etc.), with a little hack, we can change this behaviour and remap them too, and make UAC dialog aware of them even at system start up! That gives us complete control over your keyboard layout!

1. How to use MSKLC

Download MSKLC 1.4 in the link at the beginning. The developer of this application is Michael S. Kaplan. Cannot find much about this guy at Microsoft but I owe him a big thanks. It saves lots of days...
The required environment does not include Windows 10, but I find it working under Windows 10.

About how to use this software, you need a complete manual. Just explore and visit page to get some ideas:

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/linguisticsisfun/Creating_a_Keyboard_Using_MSKLC.pdf

You can learn by doing but at first, I must tell your some basic concepts in keyboard mapping.

2. Basic concepts and what MSKLC can do

Basically, MSKLC make it possible to:

• map the four levels of a key, so that you can type up to 4 letters/symbols with combinations of one key and all the modifiers. (About levels on a key cap, make sure to read this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995, in the "Level and Group selection" section.)

• Define "dead keys". Dead keys are keys used in a combination typing: by solely pressing it you don't get any output, like it is dead; then you press another key to get desired output. For example, in Spanish default keyboard layout, by default the key ´ is a dead key: you press it once and nothing happens; and you press it again, or press Space, two ´ are shown. Or, if you press a, you get á.

• Change the VK code of all the keys, including the key which you can map, and modifier keys which is not allowed to remap in MSKLC. It is to: unify the "key chars" (the characters output you get when typing) and "VK codes" (the real key OS thinks you pressed).

For example, in my current keyboard layout, O is in the original position of P. If I don't change the VK code, when I press Ctrl+O, OS thinks I pressed Ctrl+P(because the combination it receives is Ctrl+VK_P), and prompts me the system print dialog. The same applies to other programs, among those I use daily, Microsoft Pinyin IME (input method). It used to let me go to next page/previous page with . and ,. Now, with my new keyboard layout, without VK code modification, when I press . and ,, the application does not receive VK_COMMA and VK_FULLSTOP events, so it stops to behave as expected.

As Microsoft states, all applications should only detect VK codes instead of the hardware-dependant "scan code" directly sent by key strokes. (By the way, I found that Google Pinyin does poorly at this aspect: it detects "key char" when I choose characters, and detects VK code when I navigate pages. Very bad UX. )

I provide some links to help you understand it better:

Receiving Keyboard Input (Windows CE 5.0)
Keyboard Input
Full VK code table 1
Full VK code table 2

Also, it makes it possible to remap modifiers, like Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Enter, Backspace and CapsLock. Originally I use AutoHotKey to swap Capslock with Left shift, and to swap Enter with Left shift. But one shortcoming of this approach is that these swapping is not visible to the OS under certain sensitive circumstances, like in Regestry editor, UAC confirm dialog, and login screen. And, I cannot make
AHK script functioning upon system startup, and it must be initialized manually. But, if we use MSKLC to remap them (with a hack which I will mention below), in all of these places OS recognise our remapping, and it does upon startup! An OS level hack, I must say.

3. My keyboard layout design: why it is like this and why

1. What it is like

The images are more persuasive.

Unshifted (no Shift, Alt, Ctrl pressed) state:

Shifted state: (pressing Shift)

AltGr state: (pressing AltGr, usually Right Alt, a helper key to get extra charaters)

AltGr state: (pressing AltGr and Shift, for capitalized letters)

Checking the images closely enough, you will find them familiar but different from the standard QWERTY keyboard layout. Yes, it is what I want to achieve: instead of changing the alphabetical keys' positions, doing a functional optimization for all the symbol keys to make programming easier. So I name it

QWERT^ Programmer layout with symbol keys optimized

2. Why my keyboard layout is like this

It has some important features:

1. It is programmer-friendly.

All paired symbols, like {}, [], (), <> and /\, are located symmetrically at the top number line, and meant to be pressed with the same finger of each hand. We all like symmetry because it is faster to remember: when you can press { with your little finger of your left hand, you expect to press the right half with your right hand, and most likely, also with little finger. So here you have it.

Also, the order of symbols are not arbitrary: in Chinese, we literally call {} "big parethesis", [] as "middle-sized parethesis", () is "parenthesis", and <> is "little parenthesis", so there is an order from the biggest to the smallest. In Java, the order still stands: {} are for methods and blocks, [] are for arrays, () for methods signatures and <> are for parameters. The scope of these symbols are ranked from the biggest to the smallest. So the biggest should be outside, and the smallest be inside.

As for / and \, imagine your both hand: try make your both hands' fingers meet, and they form a triangle, so / is for left hand and \ is for right hand. That's why / is on the left and \ is on the riht. Self-explantory, I would say. And, they are very common so I would like to type them with my strogest index finger.

Now, note that they are designed to be able to type without Shift, because for us programmer, these symbols are essential, and more frecuently typed than numbers. I use a full-sized 104 key keyboard, so if I don't want to press Shift to press number keys,I have numpad for numbers. Alternatively, in MSKLC I enable "CapsLock = Shift" for these number keys, so that I can press CapsLock and happily type numbers without numpad.

Another thing is that the numbers are also symmetrically located, and 6 to 0 are moved two columns to the right, so I can type numbers and paired symbols comfortably without looking at the keyboard, e.g. touch typing. Inspired by a post from here, I began to think about a easily missed point: in a most ergonomically natural position,
our hands stretch to both sides, not to the left, so with numbers 0~9 sticking together and each hand handling 5 numbers, our right hand must extends itself to the left to cover its half, and it is wasted labor! But now, with 5 numbers on each side, I can spead my fingers to reach the keys symmetrically and naturally without moving my right hand, and it's faster to get to the right position.

KBD WTVKMS  "QWERT^ (VK code, Modifiers and Symmetrical numbers) - CN"
COPYRIGHT   "(c) 2017 WindThunder Studio"
COMPANY "WindThunder Studio"
LOCALENAME  "zh-CN"
LOCALEID    "00000804"
VERSION 1.0
SHIFTSTATE
0   //Column 4
1   //Column 5 : Shft
2   //Column 6 :       Ctrl
6   //Column 7 :       Ctrl Alt
7   //Column 8 : Shft  Ctrl Alt
LAYOUT      ;an extra '@' at the end is a dead key
//SC    VK_     Cap 0   1   2   6   7
//--    ----        ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----
02  1       1   007b    1   -1  -1  -1      // LEFT CURLY BRACKET, DIGIT ONE, <none>, <none>, <none>
03  2       1   005b    2   -1  00b7    -1      // LEFT SQUARE BRACKET, DIGIT TWO, <none>, MIDDLE DOT, <none>
04  3       1   0028    3   -1  20ac    -1      // LEFT PARENTHESIS, DIGIT THREE, <none>, EURO SIGN, <none>
05  4       1   003c    4   -1  -1  -1      // LESS-THAN SIGN, DIGIT FOUR, <none>, <none>, <none>
06  5       1   002f    5   -1  -1  -1      // SOLIDUS, DIGIT FIVE, <none>, <none>, <none>
07  OEM_MINUS   0   002d    005f    -1  -1  -1      // HYPHEN-MINUS, LOW LINE, <none>, <none>, <none>
08  OEM_PLUS    0   003d    002b    -1  00ac    -1      // EQUALS SIGN, PLUS SIGN, <none>, NOT SIGN, <none>
09  6       1   005c    6   -1  -1  -1      // REVERSE SOLIDUS, DIGIT SIX, <none>, <none>, <none>
0a  7       1   003e    7   -1  -1  -1      // GREATER-THAN SIGN, DIGIT SEVEN, <none>, <none>, <none>
0b  8       1   0029    8   -1  -1  -1      // RIGHT PARENTHESIS, DIGIT EIGHT, <none>, <none>, <none>
0c  9       1   005d    9   -1  00a1    -1      // RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET, DIGIT NINE, <none>, INVERTED EXCLAMATION MARK, <none>
0d  0       1   007d    0   -1  00bf    -1      // RIGHT CURLY BRACKET, DIGIT ZERO, <none>, INVERTED QUESTION MARK, <none>
10  Q       1   q   Q   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER Q, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q, <none>, <none>, <none>
11  W       1   w   W   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER W, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W, <none>, <none>, <none>
12  E       1   e   E   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER E, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E, <none>, <none>, <none>
13  R       1   r   R   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER R, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R, <none>, <none>, <none>
14  T       1   t   T   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER T, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T, <none>, <none>, <none>
15  OEM_6       0   0060    005e    -1  00b4@   -1      // GRAVE ACCENT, CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT, <none>, ACUTE ACCENT, <none>
16  Y       1   y   Y   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER Y, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y, <none>, <none>, <none>
17  U       1   u   U   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER U, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U, <none>, <none>, <none>
18  I       1   i   I   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER I, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I, <none>, <none>, <none>
19  O       1   o   O   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER O, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O, <none>, <none>, <none>
1a  P       1   p   P   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER P, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P, <none>, <none>, <none>
1b  OEM_4       0   0025    0040    -1  -1  -1      // PERCENT SIGN, COMMERCIAL AT, <none>, <none>, <none>
1e  A       1   a   A   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER A, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A, <none>, <none>, <none>
1f  S       1   s   S   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER S, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S, <none>, <none>, <none>
20  D       1   d   D   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER D, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D, <none>, <none>, <none>
21  F       1   f   F   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER F, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F, <none>, <none>, <none>
22  G       1   g   G   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER G, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G, <none>, <none>, <none>
23  OEM_7       0   0027    0022    -1  00a8@   -1      // APOSTROPHE, QUOTATION MARK, <none>, DIAERESIS, <none>
24  H       1   h   H   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER H, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H, <none>, <none>, <none>
25  J       1   j   J   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER J, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER J, <none>, <none>, <none>
26  K       1   k   K   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER K, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER K, <none>, <none>, <none>
27  L       1   l   L   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER L, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L, <none>, <none>, <none>
28  OEM_1       4   003b    003a    -1  00f1    00d1        // SEMICOLON, COLON, <none>, LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH TILDE
29  OEM_2       0   003f    0021    -1  00ba    00aa        // QUESTION MARK, EXCLAMATION MARK, <none>, MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR, FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR
2b  OEM_5       4   007c    0024    -1  00e7    00c7        // VERTICAL LINE, DOLLAR SIGN, <none>, LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH CEDILLA
2c  Z       1   z   Z   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER Z, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z, <none>, <none>, <none>
2d  X       1   x   X   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER X, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X, <none>, <none>, <none>
2e  C       1   c   C   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER C, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C, <none>, <none>, <none>
2f  V       1   v   V   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER V, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER V, <none>, <none>, <none>
30  B       1   b   B   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER B, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B, <none>, <none>, <none>
31  OEM_3       0   007e    0026    -1  -1  -1      // TILDE, AMPERSAND, <none>, <none>, <none>
32  N       1   n   N   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER N, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N, <none>, <none>, <none>
33  M       1   m   M   -1  -1  -1      // LATIN SMALL LETTER M, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M, <none>, <none>, <none>
34  OEM_COMMA   0   002c    0023    -1  -1  -1      // COMMA, NUMBER SIGN, <none>, <none>, <none>
35  OEM_PERIOD  0   002e    002a    -1  -1  -1      // FULL STOP, ASTERISK, <none>, <none>, <none>
39  SPACE       0   0020    0020    -1  -1  -1      // SPACE, SPACE, <none>, <none>, <none>
53  DECIMAL 0   002e    002e    -1  -1  -1      // FULL STOP, FULL STOP, , , 
DEADKEY 00b4
0061    00e1    // a -> á
0065    00e9    // e -> é
0069    00ed    // i -> í
006f    00f3    // o -> ó
0075    00fa    // u -> ú
0079    00fd    // y -> ý
0041    00c1    // A -> Á
0045    00c9    // E -> É
0049    00cd    // I -> Í
004f    00d3    // O -> Ó
0055    00da    // U -> Ú
0059    00dd    // Y -> Ý
0020    00b4    //   -> ´
DEADKEY 00a8
0061    00e4    // a -> ä
0065    00eb    // e -> ë
0069    00ef    // i -> ï
006f    00f6    // o -> ö
0075    00fc    // u -> ü
0041    00c4    // A -> Ä
0045    00cb    // E -> Ë
0049    00cf    // I -> Ï
004f    00d6    // O -> Ö
0055    00dc    // U -> Ü
0079    00ff    // y -> ÿ
0020    00a8    //   -> ¨
KEYNAME
01  Esc
0e  Backspace
0f  Tab
1c  Enter
1d  Ctrl
2a  Shift
36  "Right Shift"
37  "Num *"
38  Alt
39  Space
3a  "Caps Lock"
3b  F1
3c  F2
3d  F3
3e  F4
3f  F5
40  F6
41  F7
42  F8
43  F9
44  F10
45  Pause
46  "Scroll Lock"
47  "Num 7"
48  "Num 8"
49  "Num 9"
4a  "Num -"
4b  "Num 4"
4c  "Num 5"
4d  "Num 6"
4e  "Num +"
4f  "Num 1"
50  "Num 2"
51  "Num 3"
52  "Num 0"
53  "Num Del"
54  "Sys Req"
57  F11
58  F12
7c  F13
7d  F14
7e  F15
7f  F16
80  F17
81  F18
82  F19
83  F20
84  F21
85  F22
86  F23
87  F24
KEYNAME_EXT
1c  "Num Enter"
1d  "Right Ctrl"
35  "Num /"
37  "Prnt Scrn"
38  "Right Alt"
45  "Num Lock"
46  Break
47  Home
48  Up
49  "Page Up"
4b  Left
4d  Right
4f  End
50  Down
51  "Page Down"
52  Insert
53  Delete
54  <00>
56  Help
5b  "Left Windows"
5c  "Right Windows"
5d  Application
KEYNAME_DEAD
00b4    "ACUTE ACCENT"
00a8    "DIAERESIS"
DESCRIPTIONS
0409    QWERT^(VK code, Modifiers and Symmetrical numbers) - CN
LANGUAGENAMES
0409    Chinese (People's Republic of China)
ENDKBD