change Japanese keyboard to US(JIS to ANSI)

[yourslee]

Can I use Karabiner-Elements to change my Apple Internal Keyboard type from JIS to ANSI.
Just like what I can do in Karabiner

[talha131]

We discussed this earlier here #88. I suggest you to go through it.

Currently there is no single click option.

[yourslee]

@talha131 Thank you for your reply. But I think my problem is different with #88 .
My request is to change my Apple Internal Keyboard type from Japanese to US.
I can swap the cmd,option,control keys easily, but change the symbols like "#","@" is a huge project. Can you please help me? Thanks again.

Here is my current keyboard looks like:

And this is what I want it to look like:

[talha131]

To map " which is ⇧Shift+2 in JIS to @, you are going to need #16.

Currently, if I map 2 to 3, it also maps @ to # (which are tied to ⇧Shift+2 and ⇧Shift+3). So basically you can remap key+shift_key to other key+shift_key.

To only map shift_key to other shift_key, you will have to wait for #16.

BTW, what happens when you set your keyboard to US in the system preferences? Can you share screenshot of onscreen keyboard with and without shift? I am just curious.

[yourslee]

This is what my keyboard viewer shows.
In the past, I used karabiner to change my keyboard to US but it doesn't work right now on macOS Sierra.

If I have to remap keys one by one, I have to face the problem of map shift_keys only, which seems not supported right now?

[talha131]

Thanks a lot.
Can you please also share shot of keyboard with shift key pressed?

If I have to remap keys one by one, I have to face the problem of map shift_keys only, which seems not supported right now?

Yes

[yourslee]

Can you please also share shot of keyboard with shift key pressed?

Sure.

[imcoddy]

Also ran into this situation.
So basically we just need to set __SetKeyboardType__ to JIS to US?
I don't have my Japanese one at hand. Has anyone done this yet?

[xinmei9322]

Hi, in #55 there is a solution. And it works to me. Here is my setting. Hope it helps.
{ "profiles" : [ { "name" : "Default profile", "selected" : true, "fn_function_keys" : { "f12" : "volume_up", "f9" : "vk_consumer_next", "f5" : "vk_consumer_illumination_down", "f10" : "mute", "f1" : "vk_consumer_brightness_down", "f6" : "vk_consumer_illumination_up", "f2" : "vk_consumer_brightness_up", "f7" : "vk_consumer_previous", "f11" : "volume_down", "f3" : "vk_mission_control", "f8" : "vk_consumer_play", "f4" : "vk_launchpad" }, "simple_modifications" : { "japanese_eisuu" : "left_control", "japanese_kana" : "right_option", "international3" : "delete_forward", "international1" : "grave_accent_and_tilde" } } ] }
It works the same as the setting in Karabiner before.http://ml.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/~yucen/static/karbiner_setting.png

[mhulse]

Hey all!

I hate to dredge up an older thread, but I figure since this is a niche topic, I would get the attention of people that have tried this before.

I want to buy a Japanese keyboard as I like the smaller space bar. I am an English speaker and want to use Karabiner-Elements to map the Japanese layout to something like this:

Note: Yellow key is extra after conversion!

Question

Looking at my image above, should I be able to modify @xinmei9322’s JSON to get the results I want?

I thought I would ask here before spending money on the keyboard.

For readability’s sake, here's the JSON @xinmei9322 posted:

{
    "profiles": [
        {
            "name": "Default profile",
            "selected": true,
            "fn_function_keys": {
                "f12": "volume_up",
                "f9": "vk_consumer_next",
                "f5": "vk_consumer_illumination_down",
                "f10": "mute",
                "f1": "vk_consumer_brightness_down",
                "f6": "vk_consumer_illumination_up",
                "f2": "vk_consumer_brightness_up",
                "f7": "vk_consumer_previous",
                "f11": "volume_down",
                "f3": "vk_mission_control",
                "f8": "vk_consumer_play",
                "f4": "vk_launchpad"
            },
            "simple_modifications": {
                "japanese_eisuu": "left_control",
                "japanese_kana": "right_option",
                "international3": "delete_forward",
                "international1": "grave_accent_and_tilde"
            }
        }
    ]
}

[mhulse]

Got my Japanese keyboard today. I was able to get the mapping close to the image I posted previously.

Here's my ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json:

{
    "global": {
        "check_for_updates_on_startup": true,
        "show_in_menu_bar": true,
        "show_profile_name_in_menu_bar": false
    },
    "profiles": [
        {
            "devices": [],
            "fn_function_keys": {
                "f1": "display_brightness_decrement",
                "f10": "mute",
                "f11": "volume_decrement",
                "f12": "volume_increment",
                "f2": "display_brightness_increment",
                "f3": "mission_control",
                "f4": "launchpad",
                "f5": "illumination_decrement",
                "f6": "illumination_increment",
                "f7": "rewind",
                "f8": "play_or_pause",
                "f9": "fastforward"
            },
            "name": "Default profile",
            "selected": false,
            "simple_modifications": {},
            "virtual_hid_keyboard": {
                "caps_lock_delay_milliseconds": 0,
                "keyboard_type": "ansi"
            }
        },
        {
            "devices": [],
            "fn_function_keys": {
                "f1": "display_brightness_decrement",
                "f10": "mute",
                "f11": "volume_decrement",
                "f12": "volume_increment",
                "f2": "display_brightness_increment",
                "f3": "mission_control",
                "f4": "launchpad",
                "f5": "illumination_decrement",
                "f6": "illumination_increment",
                "f7": "rewind",
                "f8": "play_or_pause",
                "f9": "fastforward"
            },
            "name": "Japanese Keyboard",
            "selected": true,
            "simple_modifications": {
                "0": "9",
                "1": "grave_accent_and_tilde",
                "2": "1",
                "3": "2",
                "4": "3",
                "5": "4",
                "6": "5",
                "7": "6",
                "8": "7",
                "9": "8",
                "caps_lock": "fn",
                "delete_forward": "equal_sign",
                "equal_sign": "hyphen",
                "hyphen": "0",
                "international1": "backslash",
                "international3": "equal_sign"
            },
            "virtual_hid_keyboard": {
                "caps_lock_delay_milliseconds": 0,
                "keyboard_type": "ansi"
            }
        }
    ]
}

I would like to map one of the duplicate forward slash keys to a SHIFT + [ (to get a {) but it looks like this feature is not an option yet with KE.

Anyway, pretty satisfied. The Japanese keys can be mapped pretty close to US ANSI; there's a few changes, but nothing that I could not get used to in terms of muscle memory.

[steveonjava]

In case anyone is not quite as satisfied with less than perfection... I did a full implementation of a complex modification to do the symbol remapping from Japan to US key layouts. This should behave exactly the same as if your Japanese keyboard was recognized as a US layout.

Just drop it in the "rules" block of the "complex_modifications" profile in ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json and you are good to go:

{
    "description": "Remap Japanese Keyboard to US",
    "manipulators": [
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "2",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "open_bracket"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "6",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "equal_sign"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "7",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "6",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "8",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "quote",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "9",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "8",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "0",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "9",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "hyphen",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "international1"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "equal_sign"
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "hyphen",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "equal_sign",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "semicolon",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "international3",
                "modifiers": {
                    "optional": [
                        "any"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "open_bracket",
                "modifiers": {
                    "optional": [
                        "any"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "close_bracket"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "close_bracket",
                "modifiers": {
                    "optional": [
                        "any"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "non_us_pound"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "semicolon",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "quote"
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "quote"
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "7",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "quote",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "2",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "non_us_pound"
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "international3",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_option"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "key_code": "non_us_pound",
                "modifiers": {
                    "mandatory": [
                        "shift"
                    ],
                    "optional": [
                        "caps_lock"
                    ]
                }
            },
            "to": [
                {
                    "key_code": "international3",
                    "modifiers": [
                        "left_shift"
                    ]
                }
            ],
            "type": "basic"
        }
    ]
}

And then have fun reassigning the extra keys on your Japanese keyboard to do something cool... that is why I have one. ;)

[panfeng]

mkdir -p ~/.config/karabiner/
touch ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json
open ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json

than you can copy the code from @steveonjava

[nickmilo]

Hi @steveonjava and @mhulse, just a disclaimer that my skill level here is novice at best.

I was able to "open ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json" and paste your code from above, but I have no clue what I'm doing. I thought I saved the file, but it after a minute it would disappear from the .json file. I must be doing something (or things) wrong but I can't seem to figure it out. Also, nothing seemed to change within the karibiner window either.

If anyone can offer any suggestions or guidance I would greatly appreciate it!