Unified keyboard layouts

Could we please get some way of the game recognizing the physical keys instead of using some layout mapping?

I have a keyboard with czech layout so every time I want to play the game I have to change to english layout in OS.
This wasn’t as much of a bother to me before because I mostly played solo, but now I’m trying out RP servers.

So whenever I want to use the hotbar I have to switch to english layout.
Whenever I want to do any chat stuff (which happens a lot on RP server as you’d expect), I have to switch back to czech layout because otherwise my sentences turn into a pile of nonsense.

I know this probably isn’t much of a priority as it probably only affects those of us not using US/UK keyboards, but I think we aren’t such a minority either so it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for consideration.

edit:// Edited so that it doesn’t make an impression that none of the keys work without switching to english layout because some do.

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Wait, why do you have to switch to English? Can you not use the in-game settings to map the keys to whatever keys are available in your Czech layout?

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The keys that are the same on both, czech an english layouts, seem to work, so basicaly the alphabet except for the Y and Z which are switched. But instead of 1234567890 czech layout has +ěščřžýáíé and that is not even recognized by the game as a valid key. Same goes for things like ;’,./ etc.

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Now I get it. Thanks for clarifying!

The only workaround I can think of would be to do some AutoHotkey scripting to bind a key you don’t use normally (e.g. Scroll Lock) to switch between keyboard layouts. That way you would still have to switch back to Czech every time you’re chatting, but at least it would be a one-key switch.

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Win+Space works too, but the switching has become such a bother for me that I couldn’t stay silent anymore. I feel like I’m spending more time making sure I have the correct layout selected than playing the game lately.

I appreciate the suggestion though, thanks.

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Can’t you manually change it in the Input.ini file (located at: steamapps\common\Conan Exiles\ConanSandbox\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor)? It may take awhile to configure all your buttons but at least you would only have to do it once.

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If that doesn’t work, another thing worth considering is to write an AutoHotkey script to perform the switch to Czech whenever press you one of the chat buttons, and to perform the switch back to English when you’re in chat and press Enter or Esc. (Obviously, only when the current window is Conan Exiles.)

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I am a huge fan of AutoHotkey. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: I start one script when I start my machine and that script contains hot keys to start another couple dozen scripts which I only need running in specific situations. :+1:

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I tried manually changing it to “+” and “ě” instead of “One” and “Two”. The change displayed correctly ingame, I could see “+” and “ě” on the hotbar, but the keys were not recognized neither with english or czech layout in that moment. So I opened up settings to keybindings, Shortcuts 1 and 2 looked unmapped so I’ve set them both with czech layout and the game translated that into 1 and 2. At that point I was back at the beggining.

Maybe there is a special “name” for these keys since the .ini has “One” instead of “1”, but I haven’t figured out what “ě” should be called there.

I never considered AutoHotkey to be a viable solution for this use case, but perhaps it’s time to give it a try.

Thanks guys.

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Ok, AutoHotkey won’t work. I can’t think of a way to detect whether the chat window is active and I can’t rely on Esc and Enter because those are used outside chat too, that would only cause more chaos.

There are solutions out there though, people figured it out already apparently…

Here’s the way I think you could make it work.

Your script would have to keep track of whether it thinks the chat window is active based on the keys that bring up the chat (there’s one for chat in general, one for clan chat, and one for local). When those are detected, it should emulate the hotkey that changes the layout (via Send) and set up hotkey handlers for Esc and Enter. Those handlers would, in turn, emulate the layout change hotkey and remove themselves.

Oh, and all of these handlers should probably check if the foreground window is Conan Exiles and just not do anything if it isn’t.

The only remaining concern would be dying or getting disconnected while in chat, but you can just try to remember press Esc or Enter on your own when that happens.

I don’t have the time right now to try that approach, but I hope it could point you in the right direction.

I’d basicaly have to avoid using Enter for entering chat then, rebind it even to be sure so that there would be only specific keys which are not used for anything else and catch those. Avoid clicking with my mouse because that exits the chat too. Chm, I’ll think about it a bit more.

This is solved on Japanese keyboards by there being both a special key just for cycling through any installed languages/layouts and the space-bar combo option.

If you have a full-sized KB how about assigning the KP + to do the same?

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I’m exploring the dev kit right now, but this would be probably the easiest way to go about it.

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I consider it a bug.

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Oh, it definitely needs to be fixed. My insistence on AutoHotkey wasn’t because I don’t want them to fix it. I was just trying to come up with a workaround so you don’t have to wait for them.

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:point_up_2:This is excellent advise and probably the most important part of the script.
#IfWinActive, ConanSandbox.exe
This should include all hotkeys and strings within your script, until the next empty #IfWinActive
Best of luck to ya! :sunglasses:

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