1. nvda@nvda.groups.io

Re: Using an External Numpad

Luke Davis
 

Can you tell me the brands and maybe even model numbers?

From the research I've been doing in the last couple hours, it seems to be that most external numpads just send the keyboard version of the number-row scancodes, not the numpad version. Therefore Windows has no way of knowing that there is a separate keyboard involved.

Some of the really expensive stuff, like Leopold brand (but not all of them) appear to send the correct sequences, but most of the cheap stuff apparently doesn't, or it's a crap shoot at any rate. But, I'm not paying over $100 for a number pad.

Luke

On Thu, 5 Dec 2019, Ralf Kefferpuetz wrote:

Well, got 2 external numpads for 2 of my laptops and they work right out of the box with desktop layout in NVDA...

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Luke Davis
Sent: Donnerstag, 5. Dezember 2019 21:16
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] Using an External Numpad

Hello

Well, it has finally happened again: I have obtained a laptop with no numpad.

Since I actually intend for this to be portable (not a desktop replacement, in other words), and I hate the laptop
layout, I thought I could just plug in an external numpad, switch to desktop layout, and poof.

But no joy: the numpad does not get grafted on to the existing keyboard as if the keyboard had a numpad. Even in desktop
mode, the keys are read as home, end, pgup, pgdn, etc..

Is there some known way to cause an external numpad to be perceived by NVDA as a built in numpad for purposes of the
desktop layout?

I have tried remapping with gestures, but that just results in things like the up arrow key becoming unavailable on the
regular keyboard (being mapped to read current line instead of just the numpad 8 I intended).

I suppose I may need to find a way to cause Windows not to replicate the normal keyboard scancodes when the numpad is
used.

Luke







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Luke Davis
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