Please change how keyboard shortcuts work!!!

[nielsb_11]

First of all, Fusion Rocks!!!!

But, RC1 has introduced (IMHO) a really, really, really stupid behavior for keyboard shortcuts. In the release notes it says for improvements:

"VMware Fusion is now compatible with system-wide keyboard shortcuts: You can now use Command Tab, Exposé, and your favorite keyboard shortcuts like Control-Space for Quicksilver and LaunchBar when a virtual machine is grabbed or in full screen view."

yes, you can and that is a real problem. I.e. when I'm in my virtual machine and I use a Windows keyboard shortcut that happens to also be a Mac keyboard shortcut, the Mac shortcut will be invoked - that sux big-time!!

For example; I'm launching Quicksilver with Ctrl - Space in Mac. In Windows Ctrl - Space invokes intellisense in Visual Studio. I'm now working in VS in my VM and hits Ctrl - Space, and Quicksilver launches, WTF???????

Another example; I have Witch installed on my Mac so I can Alt - Tab between application windows on the Mac. Well guess what, when I hit Alt - Tab in my VM in Windows, all of a sudden I start to tab between Mac app windows????

Please, tell me that I am doing something wrong and I can change this behavior. If not, please, please, please reconsider implementing it this way.

Niels

[EMR]

I understand your frustration, but, please, understand that other users might feel frustrated if VMware were to act as you propose. The only solution I can think of that may satisfy almost everyone would be to set one or several user preferences that will let each user specify how specific key combinations are to be interpreted by the host and guest operating systems. In my opinion, Mac OS X should have the preeminence, not Windows. In these hypothetical user preferences, provision could be made for alternative key combinations to be passed onto the guest operating system.

Let me illustrate what I mean with an example. Command-Tab in Mac OS X is used to bring up a semitransparent, graphical popup that lets you choose which running program you want to have focus. In previous betas, Command-Tab wouldn't work if Fusion had the focus. Now it works as it should. The problem is that in Windows Vista the Windows key + Tab combination is a tremendous enhancement relative to the more traditional Alt + Tab. The problem is that, arguably, the Windows key is the same as the Command key on a Mac keyboard. Perhaps a user preference could be established that whenever a user pressed, say, the Command + Alt + Tab key combination, a Windows key + Tab combination might be passed on to the guest operating system. That way we could have the functionality of both Command + Tab (for OS X) and Windows key + Tab (for Vista) by adapting our fingers to a few new key combinations.

Other than that, some key combinations would be unsolvable. That's perhaps the most notorious penalty you will always have to pay for running a certain operating system within a different operating system.

Also in my opinion, keyboard shortcuts shouldn't vary depending on whether Unity is being used.

[rhind]

Perhaps being able to select which keyboard shortcuts are passed through to the guest would be a solution?

For me, I have re-mapped expose etc to cmdFxx so that Fxx etc work fine in Visual Studio in the guest. Unfortunately ShiftF11 (step out in Visual Studio) is still mapped as 'slow expose' and their is no Mac UI for changing this to cmdshiftF11 so if I could just select to pass through shift+F11 to the guest but leave all other keyboard shortcuts handled by OS X then I would be happy. (Or if apple were to correctly work out that shift + the key combination defined for expose would do slow expose this wouldn't be an issue)

But if VMWare's preferences allowed us to add a list of short cuts that were passed through to the guest and then all other shortcuts are handled by OS X then I could just add ShiftF11 to this list (and other combinations as I find them) and leave most (such as alttab, cmd+space etc) handled by the host.

Cheers

Russell

[maverick808]

Isn't there an option for this in Fusion's preferences? Keyboard and Mouse: Enable Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcuts. If you uncheck that then the behaviour you are complaining about should not happen.

Also, I'm glad it's a preference and, if I was forced to vote one way or the other, I'd definitely want the OS X shortcuts to be activated from within Windows. I find it very useful to be able to Command-Tab out of the VM screen, Command-H to hide Windows and to Command-Space to launch Quicksilver. By the way, the only application I use in Windows is Visual Studio, so we have a very similar set up, and I also want to invoke intellisense frequently. I solved the problem with Ctrl-Space by remapping Quicksilver to Command-Space (which I find I prefer anyway). Previously, while using Parallals, I had remapped intellisense to Control-Period, which also worked well and got around the problem.

[nielsb_11]

Thank you maverick808, thank you, thank you! Yes the preference in fusion does just that. Well, time for some humble pie!! Servers me right for not looking properly!

Thanks again!!!!

Niels

[rhind]

Isn't there an option for this in Fusion's

preferences? Keyboard and Mouse: Enable Mac OS X

Keyboard Shortcuts. If you uncheck that then the

behaviour you are complaining about should not

happen.

It is, but

a) I've had trouble getting this working at the moment (need to do some more testing, but even with this disabled, shift+F11 still did a slow expose, not pass the key press to the guest)

b) This is an all or nothing, and I won't nearly all OS X shortcuts still to work, just some that I use inside the guest to be passed through.

Cheers

Russell