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Is there a way to play Minecraft with only a keyboard?

When I have free time I'm usually on my laptop. While I do have a mouse I can dig out, there's no surface to use it on. The touchpad is sort of ok, but I'd really much rather just map the mouse movement and button to the keys surrounding L, or whatever, and keep my hands in one position.

If it's relevant, OS is Win7.

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  • You could also bring a gamepad/360 controller if you don't have a surface. – SpellingD Sep 29 '13 at 14:07
  • @SpellingD Minecraft doesn't support gamepads without modding it. – SevenSidedDie Sep 29 '13 at 18:24
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    @SevenSidedDie There are many separate utilities that let you map gamepad input to keyboard/mouse input -- Minecraft doesn't have to directly support them to use them. – SpellingD Sep 29 '13 at 18:39
  • @SpellingD I know, but leaving an incomplete suggestion lying around is misleading. My reply is as much for the benefit of the poor reader who takes Minecraft and a gamepad with them (e.g.) on an airplane and then is confused why it doesn't work. – SevenSidedDie Sep 29 '13 at 18:41
  • @SevenSidedDie Fair enough. That's why I left it as a comment instead of a full-fledged answer. – SpellingD Sep 29 '13 at 18:42
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Windows has a built-in way to control the mouse from the keyboard. It is very slow, though, and uses numpad buttons, which may be a problem on a laptop... Just in case: Accessibility Options -> Mouse or Alt + Shift + Num Lock.

Seriously, though, try NeatMouse or a similar tool.

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  • Accessibility Options, I hadn't thought of that, thanks. This laptop (dell XPS) doesn't have a num-lock key, or anyway that I've been able to unearth to switch regular keys for numpad, (first one like this I've come across). So that's out. Neatmouse is headed in the right direction. It seems to be triggering extra ctrl presses somehow, so I haven't gotten it working yet; I haven't spent much time yet troubleshooting. – matt wilkie Sep 30 '13 at 6:04
  • @mattwilkie Feel free to add another answer if you find anything better! – Orc JMR Sep 30 '13 at 8:55

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