Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

kJams allows you to customize almost all keyboard shortcuts. To do this you create a special file named "Keyboard.txt" containing your modifications and you place it in the folder:

/Users/(your user)/Library/Preferences/kJams/

Here is an example file:

#	a comment line must begin with a pound sign (#), blank lines are ignored

#	modifier keys are as follows
#	a = apple key
#	s = shift key
#	o = option key
#	c = control key
#	they may come in any order, eg: "asoc" is the same as "oacs"
#	they must be followed by a dash character, eg: -
#	followed by the UNMODIFIED version of the key you want to use
#	ie: if you want shift-S then specify "s-s", not "s-S"
#	ergo: you can not use keys which require shifting, controlling, or optioning
#	eg: the @ sign is not legal (shift 2 on US keyboards), but you can use "s-2"

# lines must end with a semi-colon: ;

"Menu/Controls/Pitch Down" = "a-t";
"Menu/Controls/Pitch Up" = "a-y";
"Menu/Controls/Original Pitch" = "a-u";
"Menu/Controls/Tempo Slower" = "as-t";
"Menu/Controls/Tempo Faster" = "as-y";
"Menu/Controls/Original Tempo" = "as-u";

To download this file, click here.

You'll notice how each line begins with the quoted string that is the path to the menu item. These strings come directly from the strings file located inside the kJams application bundle. To get to that file, follow these steps:

1. In the Finder, context-click (which means control- or right- click) on the kJams application icon, and pick "Show Package Contents"
2. Inside that folder, navigate to this file:

   Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Menus.strings

3. Copy the Menus.strings file to the desktop
4. Rename it so it says Menus.txt (it is after all just a text file)
5. double click it --> TextEdit should now launch
6. before you do anything, go to TextEdit->Preferences, and under "Format" pick "Plain Text", this is important
7. Now make a new text document, save it, call it "Keyboard.txt"
8. Now find the lines in the Menus.txt file that you want to add keyboard shortcuts for, eg: find the line

   "Menu/Controls/Original Pitch" = "Original Pitch";

9. Now type that line into "Keyboard.txt". DO NOT COPY AND PASTE. The original document is encoded in UTF16, while your document MUST BE encoded in MacRoman. If you don't know what this means then you must type. If you have the ability to convert between UTF18 and MacRoman then go ahead (only XCode seems to do this properly. TextWrangler seems to have the ability but it does NOT work)
10. Now in your new document, delete all the text inside the quotes on the right hand side of the equals sign (=) (don't delete the quotes!)
11. Type something like a-y (this stands for ⌘-Y, "a" for "apple"), save
12. Place that file in the correct location (see top of this page)
13. run kJams.

You should now have custom a keyboard shortcut for that item.