Keyboard

This document explains how to use keyboard shortcuts in FS-UAE, how FS-UAE and system keyboard shortcuts can interfere, and how the emulated Amiga keyboard works.

FIXME Keyboard joystick emulation doc

FIXME Write about custom keyboard joystick emulation devices

FIXME Keyboard CD32 emulation doc

FIXME Reference full_keyboard

Keyboard Shortcuts

The following keyboard shortcuts are available by default. Mod means Cmd on OS X and Alt on other platforms, but it can be re-configured as another key. See the “modifier key” section for more information.

Note: The shortcuts are mapped against keys on a English keyboard, so on international keyboards, the key (symbol) you have to press may in some cases be different (but same physical key).

• Use F12 to enter the FS-UAE on-screen menu.
• Use Mod+F or Mod+Return to toggle full-screen mode.
• Use Mod+Z or F11 to cycle through zoom modes.
• Use Mod+B to toggle extra visible border.
• Use Mod+S or Print Scrn to save a screenshot of the current Amiga frame to the desktop (or chosen screenshots location).
• Use Mod+Q or Mod+F4 to quit.
• Use Mod+D to activate (console) debugger.

Input control:

• Use Mod+G to release or acquire the input grab. You can also use the middle mouse button, or enter the menu.
• Use Mod+K to enable full keyboard emulation. This disables the modifier key to make it usable in emulation. In order to disable full keyboard emulation you need to press AltMod+K. This will usually be F12+K. Please see the “alternative modifier keys” section.
• Use Mod+Up when you need to press Amiga cursor up and joystick emulation is enabled. Similar for Mod+Down, Mod+Left and Mod+Right.

Emulation control:

• Use Mod+W to toggle warp mode (no frame limit, no audio). This does not affect the emulation accuracy, it only removes the pauses between generating frames.
• Use Mod+R to perform a soft reset.
• Use Mod+T to perform a hard reset.
• Use Mod+P or Pause to toggle pause mode.
• Use Mod+A to activate cartridge (Action Replay, …).

Volume control:

• Use Mod+, to decrease FS-UAE volume.
• Use Mod+. to increase FS-UAE volume.
• Use Mod+M to mute FS-UAE (press again to unmute).
• Use Mod+N to mute floppy sounds (press again to unmute).

Disk swapper:

• Use Prev (multimedia key) to go backward through the swap list.
• Use Next (multimedia key) to go forward through the swap list.
• Use Play (multimedia key) to insert the currently selected swap list entry into DF0.

FIXME:

• Tab – toggle chat function.
• Ctrl+F10 – Toggle performance graphs / FPS display (There are two FPS numbers shown, SYS: actual video output frame rate. EMU: emulated video frame rate).
• Alt+Tab (or Cmd+Tab) – Switch to another window / release input grab.

Note: It is possible to customize the keyboard shortcuts. See input mapping.

Modifier Key

The modifier key is the key used to trigger special keyboard shortcuts. The default modifier key is Cmd on OS X and Alt on all other operating systems. From now on, we will refer to the modifier key as Mod.

Note: You can specify another key with the modifier_key option.

Since Mod is used to trigger special actions, this key is not directly usable for Amiga emulation. This means that – unless you have overridden the modifier key – you will not be able to use this key alone to trigger the Amiga “Left Alt” key. The solution to this is to enable full keyboard emulation when you need it by pressing Mod+K.

Note: On OS X you’ll have problems with the “Left Amiga” key instead.

Alternative Modifier Keys

The F12 and F11 are always available as modifier keys. This is useful when full keyboard emulation is enabled since the normal modifier keys is then disabled. The Amiga does not have either F11 or F12, so this does not interfere with the emulation.

Note: On many laptops the function keys can only be used while pressing Fn. If this is the case on your keyboard, you need to hold this key as well when you are asked to use a function key.

Function Keys in OS X

On OS X, using a function key (if necessary in combination with Fn) may trigger a desktop function such as the “Dashboard” instead. So in order to be able to use for example F12 you may need to add another modifier key such as Cmd into the mix so OS X will not recognize the key combination. For example Cmd+F12 will not trigger the “Dashboard”, but will still open the FS-UAE menu, since FS-UAE allows F12 to be used with any modifier.

Depending on your keyboard setup, you may even have to press Fn+Cmd+F12. This is getting a bit ridiculous, so what you can do instead is one or more of the following:

• Avoid the use of function keys where possible. You can use Cmd-based shortcuts instead for most purposes.
• Alter OS X keyboard settings so function keys can be used without Fn.
• Alter OS X preferences and disable the desktop shortcut for the function key you want to use, for example F12.
• Use a gamepad to open/close the FS-UAE menu.
• If you do not want to alter OS X settings, but still want to be able to open/close the FS-UAE menu using a single key press, you can use input mapping to assign action_menu to a keyboard key. You should choose a key which you do not need to use for Amiga emulation.

Input Grab

Grabbing the input means that FS-UAE asks the operating system to lock the mouse to the FS-UAE window, and to send as many key presses as possible directly to FS-UAE. This is necessary in order to:

• Allow the Amiga mouse to work properly, because relative mouse motion is needed.
• Allow full use of the emulated Amiga keyboard.

So, when input is grabbed, most key pressed are sent directly to FS-UAE and is not intercepted by the operating system. This is especially true when running FS-UAE in full-screen mode, but it also depends on the operating system.

Note: If you do not want to grab as many keyboard keys as possible you can disable the option keyboard_input_grab. But please note that you may be prevented from using some Amiga keys.

Multimedia Keys and Desktop Shortcuts

Since most key presses are sent directly to FS-UAE when input is grabbed, most desktop shortcuts and multimedia keys will not work. This means that you will not be able to (for example) use the volume controls on your keyboard – if you have those – while FS-UAE has grabbed the input.

In order to use such keys or keyboard shortcuts, you can do one of the following:

• Enter the FS-UAE menu. The input grab is released while the menu is open. You can then use the keyboard shortcuts you want, and close the FS-UAE menu afterwards.
• Release the input grab using Mod+G. You can re-acquire the input grab with the same key combination.
• Release the input grab by pressing the middle mouse button. You can re-acquire the input grab by pressing once more.
• Disable keyboard grabbing altogether.

Alt-Tab Behavior (Window Switching)

When keyboard input is grabbed, on some operating systems (Linux, BSD), Alt-Tab while generally not work, since the key presses are sent directly to FS-UAE. In order to still allow Alt-Tab to work on these platforms, FS-UAE does the following:

• When Mod is pressed, the input grab is temporarily released.
• When Mod is released, the input grab is taken again, unless another Window has been switched to in the meantime.

Since the input grab is released when you press Mod, the operating system will be able to intercept Alt+Tab when you subsequently press Tab while still holding Alt as long as Alt is the modifier key in FS-UAE. If the system uses another modifier key for window switching, this workaround will not work unless FS-UAE is also configured to use the same modifier key.

Note: On Windows and OS X, the operating system always intercepts Alt+Tab and Cmd+Tab respectively, so window switching should always works regardless of input grab in FS-UAE.

Quit Keys

The SDL library used by FS-UAE intercepts Alt+F4 and Cmd+Q and uses this to close the application. This means that even with full keyboard emulation enabled, you are prevented from using Amiga+F4 or Amiga+Q.

This will continue to be the case until SDL supports SDL_HINT_HANDLE_OS_HOTKEYS = 0.

Amiga Keyboard Mapping

Keys in FS-UAE are (generally) mapped based on physical location and not by symbol. Trying to map symbols would impossible without hack-ish workarounds anyway, since one Amiga key can have its symbols spread over two or more host keys, depending on keyboard layout.

To to understand how to use the emulated Amiga keyboard, it is useful to visualize that you have printed stickers for Amiga keys, and pasted them on top of your keyboard keys, in the corresponding physical location.

Please note the following important information:

• Amiga key names are based on what the physical key location is called on an US/UK Amiga keyboard.
• Similarly, host key names are based on what the physical key location is called on an US/UK Amiga keyboard.

If you have a non-English keyboard, you need to compare your keyboard to an English one to find out what a key in a given physical location is called. Likewise, you must use an English Amiga keyboard as reference to understand what a specific Amiga key is named.

Note: Since the Amiga keys are listed in row order, you can also use this order to figure out the correct name for non-English keys. For host keys, you can refer to the separate table in the “Host Key names” section.

The Amiga keys are listed in row order, top row first. The listed action names in the table are for use with custom input mapping. The host key name is printed in bold letters when the physical location of the host key differs from the Amiga key.

• FIXME map MENU to ALT_LEFT instead?
• FIXME Alt and Amiga mappings

The keys named “2B and “30” in this list is for international Amiga keyboards which has these physical keys:

• Amiga key code 0x2B is the key between SINGLEQUOTE and RETURN.
• Amiga key code 0x30 is the key between LSHIFT and Z.

Note: It is often possible to change the keyboard layout in Workbench (or other programs) running in the emulated Amiga. This will not affect the names of the keys used in input mapping. In fact, FS-UAE will be unaware of such a setting, and it will work just like it would with a real Amiga and a real Amiga keyboard. I.e. if you change keyboard layout in Amiga emulation you can get a different symbol when you press a given key.

Host Key Names

Additional Shortcuts

The following shortcuts work, but you should be aware that the Ctrl key press will be sent to the emulated Amiga before you have completed the shortcut combination, so the key press may have side effects on the emulated Amiga:

FIXME Remove items from this list which is listed elsewhere:

• Alt+Tab (or Cmd+Tab) – Switch to another window / release input grab.
• Alt+F4 – Quit the emulator.
• Ctrl+F10 – Toggle performance graphs / FPS display (There are two FPS numbers shown, SYS: actual video output frame rate. EMU: emulated video frame rate).

Additional Shortcuts in Net Play Mode

The following shortcuts will only have an special effect while in net play mode:

• Press Tab to toggle chat function.

Other

Custom Shortcuts and Emulation

If you create a custom shortcut, for example:

keyboard_key_ctrl_p = action_pause

Then you should be aware that the emulated Amiga will see the Ctrl key press before you have pressed P. The Amiga will not see the P key press however, since this triggers the shortcut instead.

This may or may not be a problem for you. But it isn’t possible to avoid automatically because FS-UAE cannot know if you are going to press a key combination or not. In this case, if you do not want the Amiga to see the Ctrl key presses, you can for example also add:

keyboard_key_ctrl = action_none

But then of course, you’ll have no way to press the Amiga “Ctrl” key - unless you also map another host key (combination) to Amiga “Ctrl”, for example:

keyboard_key_ctrl_c = action_key_ctrl

Examples

Remapping the Extra Key on the Number Row

The number row of the Amiga has one more key than on PC keyboards. By default, this key is moved to the key left of Return (two rows down), and this key again is moved to the Insert</kbd> key. If you want to, you can change the mapping so the extra key is moved directly to the Insert key, while leaving the one next to Return alone:

keyboard_key_insert = action_key_backslash
keyboard_key_backslash = action_key_2b

Disabling the F12 Menu Key

You can disable the F12 menu key with the following option, but please note that it will still function as alternative modifier key:

keyboard_key_f12 = action_none