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# Keyboard

DOSBox Staging captures your keyboard input and passes it straight to the emulated DOS environment — most keys just work without any fuss.

The one wrinkle is that your host operating system intercepts certain key combinations (`Alt`+`Tab`, `Cmd`+`H`, etc.) before DOSBox ever sees them. The `keyboard_capture` setting lets you override this, so DOSBox gets first dibs on those keys. This is especially useful in fullscreen mode or when a game relies on key combinations that collide with OS shortcuts.

All key bindings can be customised through the key mapper (`Ctrl`+`F1` on Windows/Linux, `Cmd`+`F1` on macOS). See Keyboard shortcuts for the full list of default bindings.

## Configuration settings

The keyboard capture setting is configured in the `[sdl]` configuration section.

##### keyboard_layout

  See keyboard_layout.

##### keyboard_capture

  Capture system keyboard shortcuts. When enabled, most system shortcuts are captured and sent to DOSBox Staging instead of being intercepted by the host OS. Examples of captured shortcuts:

  - `Alt`+`Tab` (task switching on all platforms)
  - `Ctrl`+`Esc` (Start menu on Windows)
  - `Ctrl`+`F4` (virtual desktop switching on KDE)
  - `Ctrl`+`Left` (show desktop on macOS)

  This is particularly useful for Windows 3.1 and DOS programs that use key combinations which conflict with your OS shortcuts.

  Possible values: `on`, `off` default