Hello Folks,
After buying my first MacBook Pro, the first thing I did was install a virtual machine using VMware Workstation. While I had no problem getting it to function perfectly, I couldn’t figure out how to remap the keys so that I could use the Caps Lock key as a screen reader key for NVDA or Narrator. I’ve seen some people suggest SharpKeys, but first, I don’t know much about it, and second, since I can’t use the NVDA key, I can’t really interact with the screen reader—making it challenging to download or set up anything from the internet.
So, what are your recommendations? By the way, I’m loving my MacBook, but the bugs I’ve encountered with VoiceOver in just three hours are mind-boggling. Trying to navigate the Notification Center while VoiceOver gets stuck on the "Clear All" button was particularly frustrating. But I’ll be fine as long as I have Windows on hand when I need it.
I look forward to your advice and recommendations on Mac and Windows VM setups. Thank you in advance!
Warm regards,
Mert Özer
Comments
Store
SharpKeys is available on the Microsoft Store. I also believe that someone with the remapping can export the REG keys and you can import them into your machine to have the key remappings the way you like.
Interacting with the screen reader
This might be a silly question, but why do you need the modifier key to download something?
I've got Windows setup in a VM and haven't yet sorted out the annoying modifier key problem at all, but with Narrator enabled I was able to go and grab NVDA. I was getting annoyed by how slow the voice was, but there is a system tray icon for NVDA that gives you access to the settings.
Feels really crazy that there appears to be no way to use the actual caps lock os insert keys. I haven't yet come up with a key I am prepared to sacrifice to get this to work. I think I tried to remap the section symbol, whatever that is, using the VMWare key mapping options but I couldn't get that to work. Maybe Sharp Keys is the way to go.
I seem to remember that Double Tap talked about Sharp Keys and warned about a problem whereby it will ask you which keys you want to assign, and then it requires the mouse to get you out of that textbox and you are then trapped if using the keyboard only.
Give this a go!
This came up on another thread asking for help. This was the answer given there, and it has worked flawlessly for me:
https://github.com/TyflosAccessibleSoftware/ChangeKeyForVM
Yeah that's what I use too…
Yeah that's what I use too. Incredible.
You can also use carabiner…
You can also use carabiner elements, which is what I used when I didn’t have an external keyboard to directly hook up to the VM