Tip: Keyboard remapping for Dvorak layout

Question

(thanks go to Alex Donald for pointing out the Key Codes program)
I use the Dvorak layout program which is not 100% compatible with Aperture's shortcuts, because Aperture's shortcuts are hardwired to the keyboard.
fortunately, you can 'rewire' the shortcuts.
today, I found a file named KeycodeMapping.strings inside the Aperture package. Apple probably created it to remap equivalent keys to existing ones (eg, some of keypad number shortcuts call the same events as the 'top of keyboard' number shortcuts) so that they wouldn't have to double up the 'event' keys in the KeyEvents.plist file. for those of us not using the US keyboard layout, that is a good thing because it makes it easy for us to remap the keyboard to our personal keyboard configuration.
so, my keyboard and the Aperture shortcuts are now working great. if you are using the Dvorak layout, here's how to 'fix' Aperture for your working environment:
1. quit Aperture.
2. open the following file in a text editor (make a backup first to be safe):
Aperture.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/KeycodeMapping.strings
3. change the first string (ie, 'from') to:
"82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 0, 45, 34, 4, 2, 16, 32, 38, 5, 8, 9, 35, 46, 37, 1, 15, 7, 31, 41, 40, 3, 47, 43, 11, 17, 44, 39, 30, 27, 24, 6, 12, 13, 14, 33";
4. change the second string (ie, 'to') to:
"29, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 22, 26, 28, 25, 0, 11, 8, 2, 14, 3, 5, 4, 34, 38, 40, 37, 46, 45, 31, 35, 12, 15, 1, 17, 32, 9, 13, 7, 16, 6, 27, 24, 33, 30, 41, 39, 43, 47, 44";
5. save the file.
you're done. when you next launch Aperture, the shortcuts should work as expected.
not all of the keyboard shortcuts may have been remapped. for example, any shift-punctuation keys may still be wrong because the shift- and non-shift- versions of the letters may come from different keys on the keyboard. to correct this, we would have to change the mapping in the KeyEvents.plist. this is possible but I want to keep this as simple as possible for the time being. the KeycodeMapping.strings file seems to be the easiest route to go.
you could do the same for other keyboard layouts with a little investigation as Alex has already proved.
Note. if you have multiple users using Aperture on your Mac and they don't all use the same keyboard layout, this procedure would mess them up big time! if that's the case, I would suggest duplicating Aperture and modifying one for your personal use, leaving the other copy for everyone else on the computer to use.

Answer 1

Gregory, thank you soooooo much for this!
I've been trying to cope with this problem for months!
It's great to have keyboard shortcuts working. I did notice that the tool tips that document the keyboard shortcuts are wrong, at least for me. For example, switching to the standard view is Command-option-S. The tool tip indicates Command-Option-O. The Dvorak "O" is mapped over the QWERTY "S". This is a nit of course with respect to the functionality of the keyboard shortcuts.
I do hope there's a permanent fix to this in an upcoming update to Aperture.
  Mac OS X (10.4.7)