CrossOver Support - Community Forums

Hello, first-time CrossOver user here. I'm using CrossOver to run Total Commander on my Mac and first impressions are very good. However, there's a problem with the keyboard mapping: the Windows (Command) key registers as Alt whereas the Alt (Option) key registers as nothing as far as I can tell. This is quite confusing having to press Win instead of Alt. Is there a way to fix that?

Best regards.
Michal Dvorak

Michal Dvorak wrote:

Hello, first-time CrossOver user here. I'm using CrossOver to run Total Commander on my Mac and first impressions are very good. However, there's a problem with the keyboard mapping: the Windows (Command) key registers as Alt whereas the Alt (Option) key registers as nothing as far as I can tell. This is quite confusing having to press Win instead of Alt. Is there a way to fix that?

Best regards.
Michal Dvorak

Hi, Michal! That's how it works: The Mac COMMAND key is treated as the ALT key, the Mac OPTION key is ignored completely, but the Mac CONTROL key is treated as CONTROL.

You can go into your System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier Keys and set your modifier keys to behave differently. For example, you can set OPTION to behave as COMMAND and then, in Crossover and other flavors of WINE, the OPTION key will be treated as if it's the COMMAND key which means it will behave as the ALT key. Note, however, that this change is not application-specific and so will affect the behavior of your modifier keys throughout your MacOS system.

A better solution is to use something like BetterTouchTool:
https://folivora.ai
I use BetterTouchTool to change the behavior of the modifier keys on an application-specific basis. It's also really great for customizing mouse buttons and touch surface gestures.

John M. Hammer wrote:

Hi, Michal! That's how it works: The Mac COMMAND key is treated as the ALT key, the Mac OPTION key is ignored completely, but the Mac CONTROL key is treated as CONTROL.

You can go into your System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier Keys and set your modifier keys to behave differently. For example, you can set OPTION to behave as COMMAND and then, in Crossover and other flavors of WINE, the OPTION key will be treated as if it's the COMMAND key which means it will behave as the ALT key. Note, however, that this change is not application-specific and so will affect the behavior of your modifier keys throughout your MacOS system.

A better solution is to use something like BetterTouchTool:
https://folivora.ai
I use BetterTouchTool to change the behavior of the modifier keys on an application-specific basis. It's also really great for customizing mouse buttons and touch surface gestures.

Hi John, thank you for your response. Changing the modifier keys system-wide is not a good option - then the keys would be correct in CrossOver and wrong in every other application. I did try to remap the keys using Karabiner Elements, unfortunately CrossOver kept stubbornly ignoring the Option key no matter what I did. The Command key could be remapped, the Option key could not. Perhaps it would have worked with BetterTouchTool, I haven't tried that.

Fortunately I found a better solution: you can just open registry editor inside the Windows bottle and add the following keys:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver]
"LeftOptionIsAlt"="Y"
"RightOptionIsAlt"="Y"

And presto - the Option keys now work as they should. I'm surprised CrossOver doesn't let you set this in the UI.

Michal Dvorak wrote:

John M. Hammer wrote:

Hi, Michal! That's how it works: The Mac COMMAND key is treated as the ALT key, the Mac OPTION key is ignored completely, but the Mac CONTROL key is treated as CONTROL.

You can go into your System Preferences->Keyboard->Modifier Keys and set your modifier keys to behave differently. For example, you can set OPTION to behave as COMMAND and then, in Crossover and other flavors of WINE, the OPTION key will be treated as if it's the COMMAND key which means it will behave as the ALT key. Note, however, that this change is not application-specific and so will affect the behavior of your modifier keys throughout your MacOS system.

A better solution is to use something like BetterTouchTool:
https://folivora.ai
I use BetterTouchTool to change the behavior of the modifier keys on an application-specific basis. It's also really great for customizing mouse buttons and touch surface gestures.

Hi John, thank you for your response. Changing the modifier keys system-wide is not a good option - then the keys would be correct in CrossOver and wrong in every other application. I did try to remap the keys using Karabiner Elements, unfortunately CrossOver kept stubbornly ignoring the Option key no matter what I did. The Command key could be remapped, the Option key could not. Perhaps it would have worked with BetterTouchTool, I haven't tried that.

Fortunately I found a better solution: you can just open registry editor inside the Windows bottle and add the following keys:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver]
"LeftOptionIsAlt"="Y"
"RightOptionIsAlt"="Y"

And presto - the Option keys now work as they should. I'm surprised CrossOver doesn't let you set this in the UI.

Awesome, Michal! And yes, that would be a great thing to add to the nice GUI. I hope someone from Codeweavers picks up on your suggestion.

Hey Michal!

You can also map COMMAND to CTRL with the following registry settings, so you don't have to use Karabiner Elements at all.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Mac Driver]
"LeftCommandIsCtrl"="Y"
"RightCommandIsCtrl"="Y"