Best way to map shortcut keys in Windows 7?

[ew2x4]

My old media friendly keyboard at work died. IT guy only had standard Dell ones lying around. I'm missing my play/pause button and volume up and down buttons. 

 

Is there a way to map my function keys to do these tasks? 

 

I'm using Windows 7 and itunes. 

 

Thanks.

[Max Norris]

Was in a similar situation a few months back, went from a Logitech keyboard with a gazillion keys to one that's the "traditional" layout (and 1000% more durable). AutoHotKey can do that rather easily.

Just a simple example, easily change it to whatever keystrokes you want:

^!m::
Send {Volume_Mute}
return

^!up::
Send {Volume_Up}
return

^!down::
Send {Volume_Down}
return

Control-Alt-Up/Down for volume and M for mute, which is also set as extra buttons on my mouse so I don't actually have to press the hotkey at all.. change up the keystrokes if you prefer the function keys, easily done. There's also Media_Next/Prev/Stop, Media_Play_Pause and a bunch of others available to you as well.

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Send.htm

[ew2x4]

I got this to work with play/pause in itunes, but it has to have the active window. Any way around this?

[Max Norris]

I got this to work with play/pause in itunes, but it has to have the active window. Any way around this?

Ah -- I don't use iTunes myself but from what I've read in the past it can be a bit quirky when it comes to the keyboard. You can tell AHK to send a keystroke directly to a window or control. Something along the lines of:

 

DetectHiddenWindows, on  ; (Not positive, but you *might* need this for iTunes)
^!p::
IfWinExist, ahk_class iTunes
ControlSend, ahk_parent, {SPACE}  ; Simulates the space which should be play/pause

May need some fiddling, been years since I had a desire to look at iTunes, theoretically if you press ctrl-alt-p it'll send a space to the iTunes window, even if it's not in the foreground. Theoretically.

If you want to get cute you can also use "IfWinNotExist, ahk_class iTunes" to see if iTunes is even running, and if it's not, launch it via "Run".

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/ControlSend.htm

[ew2x4]

Nice! It works well. I skip between itunes and zune. I just listen to podcasts with them. Google Play All access for everything else.