Keyboard manager breaks 3 and 4 finger touch pad taps with certain remaps

[Zeebins]

Environment

Windows build number: 10.0.18363.836
PowerToys version: 0.18.1
PowerToy module for which you are reporting the bug (if applicable): Keyboard manager

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure an action for 3/4 finger tap in Windows Settings -> Devices -> Touchpad
2. Turn on Keyboard manager in PowerToys settings
3. Remap Alt with Control
4. Remap Control with Alt

Expected behavior

For 3 and 4 finger tap gestures configured in settings to work For the Control and Alt key to be swapped

Actual behavior

3 and 4 finger taps do nothing Control and Alt key do still swap as they should

Screenshots

[arjunbalgovind]

@Zeebins I don't have a precision touch pad, so I can't test all the gestures or change the gesture actions, but I was able to test this with 3 finger swipe up. By default this will show all open windows, and internally it just does Win(Left)+Tab. If I remap Win(Left) to something else, it will do that instead.

In your case I'm guessing that the actions you have set for the 3 and 4 finger tap gestures probably involve the Ctrl and Alt keys, and since you have remapped those two keys they now behave differently. Can you confirm this?

[Zeebins]

Neither gesture involves the Ctrl or Alt key My 3 finger tap is set to middle click. 4 finger tap is set to open the action center, which would be Win + A on the keyboard.

[saahmedm]

I can repro this as well. The clicking gestures do not work, but the swiping gestures work here

[saahmedm]

Reason this is happening: Although not visible to the user, these gestures are made up of keys. For example, the three finger tap gesture uses the following keys: Ctrl Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22, so when you remapped the Ctrl / Alt keys it could no longer access left Ctrl.

trying to figure out what we can do about this! great catch

[jmlag]

@saahmedm If I remap Left Ctrl to almost anything, a three finger tap brings up the "Project screen" panel (along with other actions depending on which key it's remapped to). However, if I use SharpKeys (writes directly to registry) to implement my remaps, everything works fine.

Also, if I remote into my other laptop with Remote Desktop Connection and try to three finger tap, it attempts to bring up the Project panel, even with all keymaps disabled. But if I use the touchpad on the other laptop, three finger tap to middle click works fine. Coincidence?

[arjunbalgovind]

Here is some of the information we were able to find. Remapping Win/Ctrl/Alt/Shift or F13-F24 could lead to some of the following gestures and special buttons to break:

• A subset of Surface Keyboard Attachments (some have specialized buttons for Search, Charms, etc.)
• Bluetooth Pens from Wacom, Surface, etc. that have a tail button (used for launching Whiteboard, taking a screenshot, etc.)
• Physical Rotation Lock buttons on tablets
• Signaling of pen being removed or returned to pen garage on Surface Pro X and similar OEM models
• Some 3F/4F Precision Touchpad Gestures

I've linked to this issue on the Known Issues section on the KBM wiki https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/wiki/Keyboard-Manager-Overview#4-known-issues

[pjso]

Blocking CTRL, CTRL(Left) or CTRL (Right) also blocks the "@" symbol on TabTip OSK.

[watermarkhu]

Related to this, if CTRL is remapped with e.g. CAPS LOCK, WIN+V (pasting from the clipboard manager) will not paste the selected clipboard item, but outputs CAPS LOCK + V. It takes another two actions to actually paste the item and remove the caps lock.

[sccccchallz]

They should update how the touchpad works in the future release of Windows, or PowerToys needs to do the inverse when using the touchpad separately which I believe is pretty hard.

[valecacc]

Hi, also related to this, swapping ALT & Control causes the touchpad "pinch to Zoom" feature to act as though ALT is being pressed when performed on Microsoft Office programs, notepad, wordpad, etc... Any ideas? Thanks!

[rayed-therap]

Same problem. This needs to be fixed

[Jay-o-Way]

swapping ALT & Control causes the touchpad "pinch to Zoom" feature to act as though ALT is being pressed

I'm guessing there is a Ctrl++ being sent?

[yodaodrive]

adding my +1 here

[dsua]

Reason this is happening: Although not visible to the user, these gestures are made up of keys. For example, the three finger tap gesture uses the following keys: Ctrl Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22, so when you remapped the Ctrl / Alt keys it could no longer access left Ctrl.

trying to figure out what we can do about this! great catch

Workaround to fix 3 finger tap: Remap a shortcut (just below where you remapped Ctrl / Alt): Alt Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22 to Ctrl Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22

[Garth-brick]

Workaround to fix 3 finger tap: Remap a shortcut (just below where you remapped Ctrl / Alt): Alt Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22 to Ctrl Left + Shift Left + Win Left + F22

This works for remapping Alt and Ctrl keys but not for remapping Caps Lock and Ctrl because the shortcut menu is only taking up either Caps Lock or F22, not both together in one shortcut.