How to change system language keyboard shortcuts?

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Pratheus Author

Level 1

8 points

How to change system language keyboard shortcuts?

Hi everyone,

I'm using a refurbished 13" macbook air (early 2015) running macOS Sierra 10.12.5.

My system language is French (France) and my laptop keyboard is French (azerty).

My keyboard layout is Hungarian (qwertz) as this covers the used palette of characters for me.

The problem/symptom: I cannot use multiple shortcuts of the French keyboard shortcut palette, like "cmd & +" for enlarging a website, which is not the same as zooming in and out with the touchpad, as on the Hungarian keyboard I would have to use "shift & 3" for "+", unlike on the French keyboard, where typing "+" without using shift or alt/option is sufficient. There are many other unusable shortcuts of course but I would like not to list all of them.

The basic problem: Multiple shortcuts of the French keyboard layout use different characters and key combinations unavailable in the Hungarian keyboard layout.

The goal: I would like to change all French keyboard shortcuts to Hungarian, not just the insufficiently few offered through apple sign / system preferences / keyboard / shortcuts.

Thanks very much in advance for any help and hint.

Posted on Mar 31, 2018 11:47 AM

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Answer 1

Pratheus Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 1, 2018 9:38 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Somewhat bothersome solution I found meanwhile: I would be able to re-add each and every function needed (having an unusable shortcut) one by one in the mentioned menu with a valid shortcut, as adding further shortcuts to shortcutted functions is possible.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25377?locale=fr_CH&viewlocale=en_US

I need to write in multiple languages, and yes, including Hungarian. (However, there may be another keyboard layout better fitting my writing habits, which I haven't discovered yet.)

I assume that changing the whole system to Hungarian, as you proposed, would result in the best compatibility. However, I would prefer an option with French as the system language. I will try French (Canada) and French (Switzerland), too, maybe they will resolve parts of the problem.

I gave a software called « Karabiner » a shot but it seems it's for rearranging keys, not shortcuts. (It instantly switched the key left to « 1 » and the key left to « y » (on my quertz keyboard layout) and I failed in identifying that letter next to « y » among the listed keys. After uninstalling it, they went back to normal. It may be useful for others, though.)

Tom Gewecke wrote:

Perhaps the easiest thing would be to create a custom version of the French layout which includes the extra characters you require that make you want to use the Hungarian layout.

On the one side, it's a good idea. I could use the French (Switzerland) layout (being qwertz) and add the extra characters to the corresponding « press and hold » menus of the similar character keys. On the other side, I would need to re-learn the whole arrangement of all symbols like €, %, +, -, <, “, ', [, {, «, §, *, &, and @ (while I have a French (France) azerty keyboard, where the physical keys have a completely different arrangement, which isn't helping a bit. This set of internationality starts to bug me 😁) or I would need to create a completely customized keyboard layout, watching out for the shortcut elements I would use.

I'll try the solution I found and if it turns out not to be the real thing I'll go for re-learning the arrangement.

But I'm still curious whether there are other ways.🙂

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,154 points

Mar 31, 2018 1:43 PM in response to Pratheus

Pratheus wrote:

My keyboard layout is Hungarian (qwertz) as this covers the used palette of characters for me.

Is that because you need to write Hungarian? Or for some other reason?

I assume changing your OS language to Hungarian is not an option?

Perhaps the easiest thing would be to create a custom version of the French layout which includes the extra characters you require that make you want to use the Hungarian layout.

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How to change system language keyboard shortcuts?

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