Disabling 'F1' for help...

[hand471037]

OK, so I know that it's a windows standard and all that, but with the ESC key and the F1 key right by each other, and by my own jumping from keyboard to keyboard (I'm not always using the same computer), I tend to hit F1 instead of ESC. Like, all the time. And considering how long it takes for Revit to pull up the Help file (that F1 triggers) and how much longer yet it takes AutoCAD to do the same thing, and how much you use the ESC key in both, it tends to get really annoying when in the middle of a lot of production work.

Does anyone know a simple way to turn off F1 altogether? If I need to go to the Help menu, I know how to get there, I don't need the shortcut...

[aaronrumple]

Just pull hard on the key. It will pop right off....

[hand471037]

Just pull hard on the key. It will pop right off....

While that's a fine solution for my own laptop, I very much doubt that my clients would be very happy about me doing that. :D

However, you'd always be able to tell who I worked for and which computer I'd used...

[david.kingham]

There is no option in Windows to disable any other key besides the Windows key.

For ACAD:
In the 'ACCELERATORS' section of your main menu, you can disable the F1 key
as such:

***ACCELERATORS
[INTERNAL+"F1"](prompt "\nF1 help key disabled. Use Help pull-down
menu.")(princ)

I tried adding a shortcut in revit so F1 would be modify but it doesn't work :(

A guy in our office has a folded up business card that goes around the key so you can't hit it, that may be the best option for you

[hand471037]

A guy in our office has a folded up business card that goes around the key so you can't hit it, that may be the best option for you

either that or I just glue a tack to it so that I quickly learn to NOT hit it. :shock:

Thanks for the tips.

[david.kingham]

I found this....

> I would suggest looking to using xmodmap which configures the keyboard
and
> mouse on
> start-up. do a "man" on xmodmap, you can simply add a shell script in the
> users start up
> folder (protect it of course). It is a simple, clean, powerful way to
> disable or remap everything.
> for example in the shell script having
>
> #! /bin/sh
>
> ! Remaps F1 Key to NOTHING
> xmodmap -e "keycode 67= 0x0000"

And this program
http://www.regsoft.com/keys/

[david.kingham]

Found this too....

WM_HELPINFO
afx_msg BOOL OnHelpInfo( HELPINFO* lpHelpInfo );
simply make the handler for that event empty

[hand471037]

I found this....

> I would suggest looking to using xmodmap which configures the keyboard
and
> mouse on
> start-up. do a "man" on xmodmap, you can simply add a shell script in the
> users start up
> folder (protect it of course). It is a simple, clean, powerful way to
> disable or remap everything.
> for example in the shell script having
>
> #! /bin/sh
>
> ! Remaps F1 Key to NOTHING
> xmodmap -e "keycode 67= 0x0000"

That would work swell if I was on Unix/Linux... isn't that a Linux script?

Or, if you have a version of Revit that works on Unix, then do I have some money for you! ;-)

I'm just kidding. Thanks for all the help. Problem is that all these solutions require some level of alteration of the machine, instead of something that could be done temporarily. I'm going from my personal laptop to one client's laptop to another client's desktop, etc, so I was asking if there was something 'light' that would do the job. The business card looks like the best bet.

[david.kingham]

Said they're for windows, I have no bloody clue what it all means though lmao

[hand471037]

Said they're for windows, I have no bloody clue what it all means though lmao

It could be, actually, I forget that 2000/XP does have some Unix Standards hidden in there, which probably includes some basic level of shell scripting. I tend to not think Windows capable of doing such things because the command line is so primitive IMHO I never think to turn to it to do anything (unlike Linux/Cygwin, where I use it all the time)...