The new Microsoftslop copilot key always sends the following key-sequence when pressed down:
copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up
copilot key up: <null>
This means there’s no real key-up event when you release the key --> it can’t be used (properly) as a modifier like ctrl or alt.
The workaround is to send a pretend key-up event after a time delay, but then you mustn’t be too slow / fast when pressing a shortcut.
- Linux workaround: https://github.com/m-bartlett/remap-copilot?tab=readme-ov-file
- Windows workaround https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys/issues/560
- https://xcancel.com/dcolascione/status/2019936377408811319
tldr: AI took a perfectly working modifier key from you.
— edit —
Some keyboards apparently do the “right” thing and don’t send the whole sequence at once, you can remap those properly with keyd, see: https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/1025#issuecomment-2971556563 / https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd/issues/825
copilot key down: left-shift-down left-meta-down f23-down
copilot key up: f23-up left-meta-up left-shift-up
this will still break "left-shift + remapped copilot" and "left-meta + remapped copilot", but "RCtrl + letter key" can work as expected
Is the true solution to just not use a keyboard with a copilot key?
Or take apart the keyboard, gently disable the switch, and replace it with a stationary 3D-printed key with a middle-finger texture as a constant reminder that this is why we don’t let computers run themselves.
Alright, still lost the modifier key though.
Gently disable?
yassss queen slay
Yes, but that’s essentially ‘I would simply not have that problem.’
Not having problems sounds great to me! I’ll stick with my trusty old Thinkpad.
You can’t use it forever, and even thinkpads have copilot buttons now.
I’ll probably have that problem in 15 years, I just upgraded from my T430
I won’t live forever either.
Not with that attitude.
I never use Right Ctrl but I will defend it against this abomination at any cost
I also want back the right super key that was replaced by the shitty
fnkey.
You want to add functions? Good! Add another row on top of theF13-F24row and leave myF1-F12for what I want them.
And yes, add aF13toF24column before wasting space on whatever multimedia keys you feel like adding.A VM software I’ve used at work uses right Ctrl as the button to alert the host machine “Hey the user is addressing you now”.
Want to take a wild guess who set up a VM on an old intern’s laptop after they returned to school and didn’t notice there wasn’t a right Ctrl key anymore?
Does he have 2 thumbs?
Better check. With AI it could be 4 😄
There’s a Right Ctrl?
My work laptop has this key and I remapped it with Raycast. Now, every time the key is being pressed, confetti flies across my screen. 🎉
This might as well be a sticker that says “don’t buy this shit” at a glance.
as a right ctrl user, fuck you microsoft. a while back i had to get a new laptop since the last one was falling apart and having to decide based on which models don’t have a slopilot key so that i can use my system normally is so annoying. and unlike other specs you can’t filter by this, only hope that it’s mentioned in the product description somewhere.
wtf ? a physical key on laptops that calls AI slop directly ? tell me it’s a dream, a vicious dream
It’s a Microsoft keyboard standard, you’ll see it on detached keyboards soon.
Like this one:
Normal keyboards are easy enough to deal with. Buy a mechanical one that uses the QMK firmware. Then you can just remap the key in firmware and replace the key cap.
Dreams are good, this is a nightmare.
And why did need to replace a standard key for it, instead of just adding a button?
A 3D-printed fever dream, a gift from uncle Bill.
Couldn’t they have just remapped RightControl to open Copilot for the same effect without all the downsides?
Marketing said it has to be a dedicated key, engineers were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
They’re “marketing”, surely they could just tell them it’s a “dedicated key”.
Put a sticker over the button and a default mapping in the software and none of them would have known the difference.
More like dead
icatedkey, am I right?
Pretty easily, even without introducing a new scan code. If the keyboard uses USB, Windows could have just matched against the vendor and product IDs. Or they could have set something in the USB descriptor.
The only reasons I can think of for doing it this way are either out of laziness because it’s easier to make a global hotkey than change a driver, or to intentionally make the key useless as a modifier key.
easier to make a global hotkey than change a driver
Mainly because AI doesn’t make good driver code.
So am i to understand that this sequence is built into the firmware of every keyboard with a copilot button? At that point you’d basically have to muck with the firmware. Is there any chance of altering the HID driver for the keyboard class to intercept that pattern?
Yes that’s how I understood it. You can’t fix a missing key-up signal on the OS/driver level.
This isn’t Microsoft’s first offense, btw: https://github.com/Rast1234/copilot_key_on_my_keyboard?tab=readme-ov-file#how-these-keys-workWhat about just intercepting F23 since nothing else really uses that? It looks like the key up is in there. Ignore the other modifiers.
afaik: the complete sequence is triggered when when the copilot key is pressed. You’d intercept the F23-up immediately --> no way to detect when the physical key is released.
Oh now I’m following you. So at most you could remap it to an instant trigger. There’s no option for holding the key down.
In the least it would be usable as a key alongside other modifiers. But since those keyboard with copilot key tend to use it instead of R-Control, that’s not much of an improvement.
This seems to be on purpose to spite the people who want to remap it
nah, they just ran out of options, because they already used the press all modifier keys (HYPER) hack for the physical office key(I’d have to check how it handles key-up events, but I’d bet it does it correctly / distinguishable --> I think I’m on to something https://www.makeuseof.com/remap-caps-lock-to-hyper-key-and-double-shortcuts/ )
Defining a new keycode would’ve gotten them in trouble with their hardware partners, because that would be hard and break backwards compatibility, so they took the easy / stupid way out to implement this awesome new button, just to appease the marketing / product department. (conjecture)
This is just a result of the banality of evil / incompetence.
In Windows:
PowerToys -> Keyboard Manager -> New Shortcut -> press the Copilot key -> select “Ctrl (right)” from the drop-down. Job done.
Not sure why is it so hard on Linux that it generates such headlines.
I still miss times when the bottom row was just Ctrl, Alt, Space, Alt, Ctrl.
I miss the menu key so much… It was the way I accessed the spelling corrector. Using a mouse for that is so cursed. The menu key had other uses too as the context is useful.
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I like the Meta key.
I use dwm, so that key is my lifeline.
I use it as a Compose key, but it’s just because it’s there; I also did something similar with the Scroll Lock key (I repurposed it to signal “turn it off” for certain autoclicking scripts, otherwise it would be completely useless). IMO keyboards are all fucking wrong anyway.
Remap that ish to capslock and now we’re talkin
Capslock is remapped to ESC because I also use Neovim.
ESC on tap, timeout to Super on hold 😎
edit: keyd makes it as easy as
capslock = overloadt2(meta, esc, 300)Yuck, holding.
Nah fam, no altered behaviour for the same key based on time.
That’s just to not emit the keyup for ESC after pressing Super+key and letting go. The only thing affected by time is a reeeaally long ESC press not registering (the same as holding Super for a second).
And rolling Super+key faster than the timeout resolves as a hold (Super) instead of tap (ESC), so there’s zero jank unless you need to hold ESC, and there’s still the real key.
Alright, that may have its use.
I’m not old enough to remember those times; but why would you miss that? It’s certainly useful to have a meta/super key for desktop environment shortcuts, and I use the menu key as a compose key, though admittedly without the menu key I would probably put that on the right control key. :D
I guess it’s a bit of “old man yells at cloud”? Plus I miss the bigger space bar.
The Copilot logo is the computer version of aposematism.
Then why do I want to eat it?
How many keyboards have that key nowadays? I have not bought a new keyboard or laptop very recently.
The proper solution is to install gnu slash Linux.
They can’t stop you from popping the key off, though.
They can’t stop me from not buying these sinful machines either.
I mean yeah you right, but if your job foists one off on you or something it’s a quick fix.
I managed to remap the key on my asus vivobook (M5406WA) running fedora 42 to be used as the compose key
