A Plea to Paradox

[Raen]

My new computer arrived yesterday. I absolutely love it...except for one thing.

On the latest Microsoft (may they burn in hell) keyboards, you have to press Function Lock to get the good old function keys we all swear by. But guess what? Pressing Function Lock disables the Pause key (makes it Break instead).

Having to press the Pause key has always been a rather tacky aspect of Paradox games. Ideally, one should be able to press the space bar, but, really, any key in addition to Pause would suffice.

Let me say this nicely: we really SHOULD be able to customize the keyboard, but, failing that, how about an alternate pause key? I really don't see that that would be too difficult....

 

[Darkrenown]

I have a keyboard with an F lock key, but luckily it doesn't affect pause. Worse yet, on the keyboard I use more often there is a power off key right above the pause button. I HATE that power off button! The number of EUII, HoI and Vic games that key has ruined is uncountable.

Anyway, you should be able to edit the pause key in shortcuts.txt, but I tried and it didn't work. You could try and see if you get better results.

 

[Raen]

I have a keyboard with an F lock key, but luckily it doesn't affect pause. Worse yet, on the keyboard I use more often there is a power off key right above the pause button. I HATE that power off button! The number of EUII, HoI and Vic games that key has ruined is uncountable.

Anyway, you should be able to edit the pause key in shortcuts.txt, but I tried and it didn't work. You could try and see if you get better results.

Where is shortcuts.txt? I just searched for it, with no result.

 

[Darkrenown]

Sorry, turns out it's buttons.txt. It's in victoria/db

 

[Tai-Pan]

Dear god I thought CTD's were bad, but that button sounds like absolute hell. I think I'd rip it out, to avoid any more such incidences.

 

[Darkrenown]

I really should swap keyboards around. Every time I hit the power off button I resolve to do so, but then I decide I'll just be more careful and never hit that button again...

 

[Lethke]

I really should swap keyboards around. Every time I hit the power off button I resolve to do so, but then I decide I'll just be more careful and never hit that button again...

Just remove it from the keyboard. I have experienced the same problem, untill i ripped that foul, unforgiving key straight from it's place. Haven't had any problems since that faithfull day.

 

[Darkrenown]

Good idea, but won't the plastic bit remain, leaving it pressable?

 

[Lethke]

Good idea, but won't the plastic bit remain, leaving it pressable?

Nope. The pressable part is deep down underneath the keyboard. The only way to press it would be with a match or some other pointy object.

 

[Darkrenown]

*Pulls off stupid power off key* So it is! Older keyboards had a sticky up bit the key sat on, but now the pressy bit is at the bottom of a channel and the key has a sticky down bit

 

[Lamprey]

New keyboard: $10. Uninterrupted games: priceless

I'm counting myself lucky I don't have one of those though lol.

 

[jpd]

*Pulls off stupid power off key* So it is! Older keyboards had a sticky up bit the key sat on, but now the pressy bit is at the bottom of a channel and the key has a sticky down bit

I feel for you. I had to wrestle with a similar stupid keyboard on a LAN party last year.

The idiot that cooked up this rediculous power off key placement should be brought in front of a firing squad and shot.

Jan Peter

 

[Raen]

Thanks for hijacking my thread, guys.

Anyway, let me reiterate the plea to Paradox. It doesn't look like buttons.txt does anything.

 

[Darkrenown]

What, I am not allowed to get help now?



But I still agree remapping the pause key would be good.

 

[Stonewall]

My new computer arrived yesterday. I absolutely love it...except for one thing.

On the latest Microsoft (may they burn in hell) keyboards, you have to press Function Lock to get the good old function keys we all swear by. But guess what? Pressing Function Lock disables the Pause key (makes it Break instead).

Having to press the Pause key has always been a rather tacky aspect of Paradox games. Ideally, one should be able to press the space bar, but, really, any key in addition to Pause would suffice.

Let me say this nicely: we really SHOULD be able to customize the keyboard, but, failing that, how about an alternate pause key? I really don't see that that would be too difficult....

There's actually a fairly easy solution for this. Remap your keyboard. There are some free programs out there that allow for remapping of keyboards when certain .exe or other programs are running. Simply download one of them and key in a remap when victoria.exe is running. Problem solved.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Or, scrap the Microsoft keyboard. Non-standard pieces of equipment tend to cause problems anyway...

Now, if I can just find a nice, rectangular, cheap 105-key keyboard, instead of the overpriced pieces of junk I keep finding in stores...

 

[Raen]

Or, scrap the Microsoft keyboard.

That's what I ended up doing. Went back to the keyboard from my old computer. Too bad, because I liked the feel of the keys, but in addition to the bizarre function lock business, it also arranged the function keys in groups of 3, when everyone knows they're supposed to be arranged in groups of 4 It was utter chaos....