phpStorm + AZERTY = :) --Updated

Update: I am very pleased to announce that as phpStorm 9 (or maybe even a later build of phpStorm 8) this problem has been fixed. You can now do keyboard mapping to your heart’s content and the default mappings work as expected on AZERTY :)

I was very excited to use PhpStorm by Jetbrains as it seemed to be the solution to several of my text-editor (and lack of IDE) problems. I was all set with my downloaded trial version and was even thinking that this might be a good item for my birthday list. I found the appropiate how to set of video tutorials by Jeffrey Wey, made myself a coffee and was ready to go. I didn’t get very far. All the keyboard shortcuts work only with a QWERTY keyboard. I wrote them an email, to which they replied fairly promptly.

Unfortunately, it’s not connected to the trial version. Our shortcuts was designed only for QWERTY keyboards and a lot of shortcuts are indeed not ready to be used with AZERTY keyboard. Please vote for: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-75636  

Clever goose that I am, I thought I would just change the keyboard mapping manually for the most frequent features but this is not possible as ⌘ ⌃ ⌥ and ⇧ are not recognised on the AZERTY keyboard for key-mapping. I thought this might have something to do with the trial version but alas no.

Me : the command touch is not recognised nor are ctrl alt or shift.

Jetbrains : This is probably because of the issue I’ve mentioned: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-75636 Unfortunately, there is no workaround yet.

The issue, although it does not deal directly with PHPStorm, has been ongoing since 2011 and only has 12 votes, including mine. Since you have to sign in to vote (and that is always a bit of a hassle) it is unlikely to change anytime soon. So if any of you AZERTY users out there want to be able to use PhpStorm please vote on this issue. If anyone does need to adapt their keystrokes, David Wursteisen, who commented on the issue sorted out a few workaround keystrokes:

key pressed

key displayed

So, there are two solutions for AZERTY users who would like to use this software. Either use (and probably memorise) the corresponding keys on QWERTY. Or enlist support for this issue. I think its a shame to have to put in so much effort to use a paid product but there it is. At any rate it looks like I’ll have to think of something else for my birthday.