So this is a weird one:
I broke a key on my keyboard, a Logitech MX Keys for Mac which is connected via the Logitech Unifying receiver USB-A dongle. It's fixable but I didn't want to fix it right away. No big deal, I have at least 5 other perfectly good keyboards. So I pulled out a standard Apple USB extended keyboard (no Bluetooth) and everything seemed to work. Except one thing:
With BetterTouchTool I have one of my mouse's thumb buttons set to behave as the Command key in the "For All Apps" group by using a pair of CMD Key Up/CMD Key Down actions for Button 3, the mouse's thumb button. This works perfectly with both keyboards.
When using a Windows application with Crossover or other varieties of WINE, I use an app-specific group which, when wine-preloader or a variety of other applications are in the foreground, causes Button 3 to behave as the Shift key instead of the All App group's setting for the Command key. This works perfectly with my Logitech keyboard.
But with the Apple USB keyboard, Button 3 is doing nothing. All the other things I have programmed for the WINE group work. For example, I have Button 8 and Button 9, my mouse's scroll wheel rock-left and scroll wheel rock-right, set for left-arrow and right-arrow in the WINE group whereas for my All Apps group those are set to just be a normal middle click. It's only the pair of actions intended to cause Button 3 to act as the Shift key which don't work.
This is really odd because I can swap these keyboards in and out and the Logitech keyboard works perfectly with my WINE group's setup of the mouse's Button 3 as the Shift key. But with the Apple USB keyboard this simply doesn't work: All the other app-specific settings in the WINE group work, but when using the Apple keyboard I can't use Shift plus some keypress on the Apple keyboard to do anything, it only registers the keypress on the keyboard and not the button-down Shift modifier key from the mouse's Button 3.
And the Apple keyboard does register the Command key when any non-WINE app is in the foreground, allowing me to use the mouse's Button 3 as the Command key in combination with keyboard keys to, for example, do copy and paste operations without having to use two fingers of one hand on the keyboard or move my hand off the mouse.
It's not just the presence of the Apple keyboard connected to the system: I can leave the Apple keyboard connected and also connect the Logitech keyboard and the behavior is the same: If I hold down Button 3 on my mouse and tap a keyboard key on my Logitech keyboard while a WINE app is in the foreground, it works as expected giving me the Shift+key combo. But if I hold down Button 3 on my mouse and tap a keyboard key on my Apple keyboard while a WINE app is in the foreground, it only registers the keyboard key – not the Shift+key combination.
Not a big deal, I already have the Logitech's key repaired. But this is very odd and I'd love to know if there is a workaround for this issue with Apple keyboards or if it's some known issue that cannot be worked around.
Thanks for reading! Hope the above was understandable.