[bfritscher]

This fixes partially issue #110 and #65.

Keys are now showed after transforming them with win32 KeyCodeToUnicode.
If a ctrl or alt is used it defaults to the lowercase default letter => shortcut
If shift is pushed without ctrl or alt it shows directly the mapped character, as was handled before with the hardcoded list, but now it is locale specific and automatic.

However there are some improvements which could be added:

• correct handling of dead keys
• Keymaps parsing still uses the hardcoded values.
• alt-gr shows as ctrl + alt + base key instead of special character

[bfritscher]

Based on the tests shortcuts letters have to be capital?

[doggy8088]

Hi there! 👋

I (@doggy8088 / Will Huang) have stepped in to take over active maintenance of Carnac at doggy8088/carnac (project website: https://carnac.gh.miniasp.com/).

This issue regarding international keyboard layouts and Chinese localization has been resolved in my fork!
Thank you @bfritscher for contributing this PR! We ported your Win32 ToUnicodeEx keyboard layout translation into our fork (doggy8088#30), made it configurable via the UseKeyboardLayoutNames setting (enabled by default), and ensured dead-key state is preserved safely.

Context & What Changed

• Root Cause:
  1. Non-US Keyboard Layouts (I'm using a DE (German) keyboard with a DE layout in Windows but Carnac reads my keystrokes as if I were using a UK layout #110, Support to show keyboard keys based on locales #161): Carnac previously mapped virtual key codes using a hardcoded English QWERTY table (ReplaceKey.Sanitise / ShiftReplacements), so typing ?=)( on a German (DE) QWERTZ keyboard or using French AZERTY / Nordic / Spanish layouts displayed the wrong US/UK characters ({)(*).
  2. UI & Key Localization (Can it translated into chinese? #231): All UI strings were hardcoded in English XAML with no localization support.
• The Fix:
  1. Keyboard Layout-Aware Key Names (Show keys as named on the keyboard layout in use (upstream #161) doggy8088/carnac#30, ported from Support to show keyboard keys based on locales #161): Uses Win32 ToUnicodeEx / GetKeyboardLayout (UseKeyboardLayoutNames, enabled by default in Preferences -> General) to translate keystrokes according to the active Windows keyboard layout so German, French, and other international layouts display the exact characters typed.
  2. Chinese Localization (zh-TW & zh-CN) (Localize Preferences, tray menu and key labels (zh-TW, zh-CN) doggy8088/carnac#52): Added full Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) and Simplified Chinese (简体中文) translations alongside English, with an in-app Language selector in Preferences -> General that switches the UI immediately without restarting.
• Related Issues & PRs:
  • Tracking Issue: Localize the Preferences UI (start with zh-TW / zh-CN) and key-cap labels doggy8088/carnac#27
  • Pull Requests: Show keys as named on the keyboard layout in use (upstream #161) doggy8088/carnac#30 & Localize Preferences, tray menu and key labels (zh-TW, zh-CN) doggy8088/carnac#52

Availability

• Source Code: Available now on the dev branch of doggy8088/carnac.
• Upcoming Release: This will be included in the next official release, which will be published to GitHub Releases (both installer and portable .zip), WinGet (winget install doggy8088.Carnac), and Chocolatey.