Preserving existing Keyboard layout tricks?

[rokkyboy]

Hello all,

After few years of using Autohotkey, I find myself staying away from using multiple modifier keys to save my fingers. However, using a single modifier key has limited mapping possibilities without interfering with existing mapped keys for day-to-day applications.

I've used Capslock as a modifier key for quite some time with good success.

Longest trick for me was to use NumLock to have the keypad mapped to most of my hotkeys. However, I had to remember to turn it off every time I pressed a key.

Not sure what the best fail-safe method would be, but I found that HIDMacros + Authotkey combination using a separate keyboard/keypad seems to be quite sound so that'd the route I am experimenting now. Having few difficulties with mapping HIDMacros right now but hopefully as I get more familiar, I'll get better.

I also recently came across somewhere in the forum where you can press a key, and it starts to intercept key presses so that you can map two keys to execute a command without the keys making any input anywhere else. This approach also sounds quite good as my right hand usually moves around but left hand stays where it is and I would be able to map most of the stuff to where my left hand is.

Chording method also seems useful, but usability doesn't seem to be all that wide and I always try to share my codes with colleagues, and I think some would have trouble with it being a bit counter intuitive.

Could you share what your tricks are for preserving your keyboard layout?

I'm sure there must be loads of good ideas out there!