Web review

The screenshot you see here on the left shows a Mac OS X (Leopard) window that pops up when a new usb keyboard is connected. It asks user to press the key on the right of (left) shift, to detect the correct international map. Yesterday I had a problem with the keyboard of a Mac Mini I have in my office network: “<>” and “\” keys were swapped.

In the italian keyboard, “<>” is the key on the right of left-shift, and “\” (the backslash) is above the TAB key.

Apparently without any valid reason, these keys reversed their position, like (I think) they are on official Apple keyboards (I use instead a normal Toshiba PC keyboard). I tried to disconnect and reconnect the USB plug, but the selection window didn’t appear – I think because the system “remembers” that keyboard, so it doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask user to press keys to detect it again.

After a lot of Googling, I found that it’s necessary to delete a file to make Mac OS completely forget keyboard settings:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

So, after the deletion of this file, I reconnected the keyboard and I completed the dection wizard. Keys are now fixed

Tag: keyboard, mac os x

This content was posted Saturday 17 January 2009 on 2:57 am in category Mac, Tricks. You can follow the comments in this article with its dedicated feed in RSS 2.0. Here you can leave an answer. Pinging is not enabled.