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How can I change a key on my keyboard so that it produces a different character than what it was designed to produce? I find the Tilde key (the little key with ∼ above the Tab key) useless and I would like it to produce the n-dash (–) when I press it. I am not a programmer, so I would like a very dumbed-down explanation with steps. Thanks to anyone who makes their time to respond to this.
My operating system is Windows 10 and the language of the keyboard is Slovene.

keyboard picture

Dominique
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Tharathyn
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  • What is your operating system? What is your keyboard language and layout?. Please [edit] this information into your question. – DavidPostill Jan 18 '24 at 08:56
  • I have edited my post – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 09:01
  • Not quite sure what's the issue here - ` (backtick) is normally produced when that key is pressed, is it not for you? Why are you asking about ~ tilde in that case? Remapping that obviously won't work if you don't hold Shift. – Destroy666 Jan 18 '24 at 11:58
  • From your duplicate I see you wrote it produces ¸, so have you tried remapping that instead? If it doesn't work directly, you'll just need to find the key code, which is described in many AHK tutorials. – Destroy666 Jan 18 '24 at 12:07
  • @Destroy666 We had a discussion about this with Relax under answer 1, he asked similar questions and I am guessing he came to the same conclusion as you. Unfortunately, at this point, I am no longer capable of following the suggestions, as they became too complicated and I am not a programmer. Thank you for your help and input. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 12:56
  • There are various key mapping utilities that make this simple. Which one you choose will vary based on the OS you're running. Have you tried any of them? – music2myear Jan 19 '24 at 00:49

1 Answers1

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You can remap a key

For the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, see registry remapping.

EDIT:

Remapping per AutoHotkey:

~::–

EDIT 2:

In the rare case where a key has no name or the standard code doesn't work, hotkeys can be triggered by using the 3-digit hexadecimal scan code (SC) of a key.

The scan code of a key can be determined by following the steps at Special Keys:

  • Run a script with keyboard hook
  • open the AutoHotkey window (context menu in systray, Open item)
  • go to View > Key History and script info
  • type the key
  • hit F5 to see the code

Then you can try e.g.

SC174::SendInput –

Replace 174 by the number found in the Key History.

Relax
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  • I tried using the AutoHotkey but I am unable to find the exact name of my key on any of the lists. Whatever I put in, the AutoHotkey states that the name of the key is incorrect. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 10:24
  • I tried ~::SendRaw –, Tilde::SendRaw –, TILDE::SendRaw – and some other things, but I may be typing in the wrong thing. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 10:29
  • See EDIT in this answer. – Relax Jan 18 '24 at 10:42
  • Thank you very much for your help, AutoHotkey seems to have accepted it, but the desired function doesn't work. When I press the key, I still get what was default for the key (in the case of the Slovene keyboard that was nothing when pressed once and ¸¸ when pressed quickly twice in a succession). Do I have to restart the computer for it to start working? – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 10:51
  • How do you type ~ in that layout? Pressing Shift+key? – Relax Jan 18 '24 at 11:00
  • I can't. The ~ on the key only represent diacritics, so I can type letters ã, ñ, õ. I cannot achieve the ~ symbol independently, I have to find and copy it from somewhere. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 11:07
  • If you remap that key you cannot type letters ã, ñ, õ anymore. Is this wanted? – Relax Jan 18 '24 at 11:16
  • This is wanted. I am not using the ã, ñ, õ letter or any other symbols that the key currently produces and I only want it to produce an n-dash (–) when pressed. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 11:22
  • Try EDIT2 in this answer. – Relax Jan 18 '24 at 12:25
  • Thank you very much for your help. Unfortunately, this is getting too complicated for me as a very average non-programmer computer user. I don't really know what "run a script" or "open its main window" means, I would need a clickthis-clickthat style tutorial, but I don't want to bother you with this, you've been very kind. I will save the answer and in the future I might come back to it. Until then, copy-pasting the n-dash it is. – Tharathyn Jan 18 '24 at 12:47
  • To learn using AutoHotkey do begin here. – Relax Jan 18 '24 at 12:54