Just wanted to say that now thatI have ESpeak working I am testing out
the Spanish keyboard--albeit slowly. I've finally gotten the Spanish
accents downon the US keyboard, thanks to the Spanish voice--I am just
trying to decide if it's worth memorizing another keyboard layout.
Jane
On Mar 29, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Jane,
Why don't you try the Spanish keyboard from the International menu
options and see how you like it for input? You need to check the box
for this in the table on the input menu tab. Then, you'll have a
text input
menu appear on the part of the menu bar that reports your battery
status, airport, and volume. VO-keys+m twice and right arrow to this,
then down arrow to select Spanish.
So how would I get a feel for, say, a Spanish keyboard layout? I
know
the US one, but it would be nice to just switch keyboards and not
worry about key combinations to type accents--at leastnotlike I have
to with the US keyboard.
Any suggestions?
What I do to check out these keyboards is set the VoiceOver
verbosity to
While typing: speak every character. Then I open a TextEdit window
and start typing. In general, if I'm checking out accents I'll try
the keys
to the right of the standard letter keys first: right bracket, left
bracket,
backslash, semi-colon, apostrophe, comma, period, and slash at the
right-hand side, and the accent key under the escape key on the left.
I might also check out the hyphen and equal keys at the right end of
the row of numbers.
I type the keys straight, then shifted, then with the option key
held down.
If I want to check whether any letters are switched, I just type an
abcd etc. alphabet sequence. Then I run through numbers at the
top of the keyboard. Any key that has special symbols will usually
also get checked out with the Option key and Shift key held down.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
P.S. Just as a comment, you turning on keyboard practice mode in
VoiceOver always uses your real, default keyboard, so you'll always
hear your U.S. keyboard setup. However, if you use TextEdit, you
can listen to the different key strokes. You can also type a standard
sequence of keys for one keyboard, then switch to a different
country's keyboard in the text input menu, and type the same keys.
You'll have a record of the keyboard differences.
On Mar 27, 2008, at 5:31 PM, Greg Kearney wrote:
It should be noted that you can have more than one national keyboard
and select them from a keyboard menu. For example I have the US and
Swedish keyboards so that I can quickly change the [ ' ; keys to
type å ä ö
Greg Kearney
535 S. Jackson St.
Casper, Wyoming 82601
307-224-4022
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mar 27, 2008, at 3:06 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Will,
You asked:
WL: hi, does anyone use a german keyboard layout on a macbook at
all?
how do i type the umauts such as a umlaut, o umlaut u umlaut
etcetera?
I type an umlaut on a regular (U.S.) Mac keyboard using the option
key,
To place the diaresis over the u, hold down the Option key while
pressing
the u key; release and type u again. For the same mark over the o,
after
you release your option and u keys, type o. For a "sharp ess" (or
German
eszett) hold down the Option key while pressing the s key.
In general the way you type accents on the Mac keyboard with the
Option key
follows one of the two patterns given above:
1. accent marks associated with specific letters are typed by
pressing the
Option key in combination with that letter; for example:
French cedilla Option+c (as in français)
German eszett Option+s
Nordic o Option+o (as in Søren's name)
2. accent marks that can be used with different letters (like your
example of
umlaut 0, umlaut u, etc.) are typed by pressing the Option key in
combination
with the accent mark key, then after releasing both keys you press
the
letter you want accented:
diaresis (umlaut) Option+u (as in für)
circumflex Option+i
acute accent Option+e
grave accent Option+` (VO announces this key as "accent" whether
or not
the option key is pressed with it; on U.S. keyboards this is
the key
under the escape key at the left side of the keyboard)
tilde Option+n (as in señor)
If you want to get these accents by themselves, type Option+Shift
+that accent
key. So Option+Shift+u for the umlaut (with no letter accented),
and
Option+Shift+n for the tilde, etc.
I experimented with these after Jane's question to the list a while
ago
about typing accents on the regular keyboard.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
