Starcraft – Grid layout for lefties does not work with ‘w’ key

starcraft-2

I cannot get my w key to work in Starcraft 2. I can assign a hotkey to it in settings, and it works in the chat, so it obviously "works", but it never works for unit command hotkeys.

I have a bizarre setup I realize, but I cannot really live without it:

  • I use Dvorak-International keyboard layout, because I use Dvorak, I use an American keyboard, and I frequently need to type international characters.
  • I use grid for lefties in Starcraft 2

For some reason, the w key does not register at all during gameplay. This is the c for the normal grid layout. Bottom row, 3rd column of the grid.

This makes it impossible to use a hotkey for:

  • Hallucination
  • Transfusion
  • Raven seeker missile

And others.

Anyone have a suggestion for a solution?

Update

I figured out that it is indeed the layout, and a bug in Starcraft 2. It seems that while Starcraft 2 handles alternate keyboards surprisingly well, it falls short. I found that Starcraft will consider it a duplicate when a dvorak key and its corresponding qwerty key are assigned. That's confusing…

For example, I assign / using my dvorak keyboard (that's the [ key to you qwerty folks). Now I mysteriously cannot assign z (that's / in qwerty). There is no logical reason these should be considered duplicates; they are two physically different keys, so it seems that Starcraft 2 still uses the qwerty layout for some of its checking.

Man I can't think of a better way to explain it; that must be confusing.

Anyway I did as I said and totally revamped my keyboard layout anyway. I have to just live with a few "dead" keys.

Anyone know where I can file a bug report to Blizzard?

Best Answer

I'm guessing its most likely because of your keyboard layout. I would set up an alternate layout and a Windows hot key to switch to it for Starcraft 2.

I use U.S. International myself but I always make sure that I have a way to switch to U.S. Standard since I occasionally run into games which have issues with it.