Dear Esther, I let you copy this message to the list if you think that's necessary. I finally found what my mistake was, thanks to a sighted person who was watching me typing. After double-clicking and holding your finger on the screen, it's not enough to wait for the blip sound before starting to slide your finger. If you start too soon, your finger acts as a zoom, increases the letter size and still lets you choose letters. Maybe there is a setting on my iPod which does that and which I should deactivate. But if you wait one more second after the blip and start sliding, everything works as it should. But nothing like waiting a little more after the blip is mentioned on the manual, maybe it should. Cheers, JPR http://www.facebook.com/jprykiel http://myspace.com/jeanphilipperykiel
----- Original Message ----- From: Esther To: [email protected] ; [email protected] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 4:39 AM Subject: Summary of options for typing accented letters on iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad (long) [was Re: iPod touch or iPhone iOS4& accented letters] Dear Jean-Philippe, I'm cc'ing this reply to the viphone list, as well as to you directly. The basic reply to your question about problems you're having problems using VoiceOver in touch typing mode under iOS4 is given in the first two paragraphs, with an explanation of how I use this on my iPod Touch. The rest of this somewhat lengthy post describes the way you can type accented characters with an attached Apple Keyboard (either the Apple Wireless Keyboard or the iPad Keyboard Dock, both of which can be used with the iPod Touch upgraded to iOS 4. In addition, I further describe another solution using the TextExpander Touch app, which allows you to type on the virtual keyboard. This solution can be applied to the iPad, which really does still have a problem touch typing accented letters. People who are not interested in the keyboard solution or using TextExpander Touch can skip the later parts of this post that describe these alternatives. Touch typing of accented letters with VoiceOver under iOS 4 does work; try using a lighter touch on the keys for accented letters. Touch typing accented characters didn't work for me on the iPad, but does work on the iPod Touch with iOS 4. If you can't manage a light enough initial touch on the letter "e" or "a" (as in the examples you gave), try flicking to the letter to give it focus. Then do a double tap and hold pass through gesture anywhere on the screen and shift your finger to the right (or left) to the accent combination you want, and lift your finger. I typically first lightly touch the letter on the virtual keyboard to give it focus. Then, I usually do my double tap and hold above the actual virtual keyboard, and I'll move to the right (or left) on the screen without lifting my finger until I hear VoiceOver announce the accent that I want. When I lift my finger, the accented character gets correctly typed. To repeat, I could not get this to work reliably on the iPad (either before or after today's update to OS 3.2.1), but Apple seems to have adjusted the iPod Touch settings in the iOS 4 update so that this will work now. On the iPad, no matter how lightly I touch the letter on the virtual keyboard, it gets typed as soon as I lift my finger, so there's really no good way to type accented letters unless you can flick to the letter you want. For example, to type "à" ("a" with a grave accent) in touch typing mode on the iPad, I have to touch the delete key (which will move focus to this key, but won't cause any action, since you'd need to double tap this key for it to delete a character), then flick right to the "a" key. Then, I can double tap and hold anywhere on the screen, and I'll hear the sound for the pass-through gesture. I'll move my finger to the right, and hear VoiceOver say "a grave, selected", and when I lift my finger from the screen, an accented "à" will be typed. This means that in order to touchtype other accented letters, I have to flick further. For, example, if I want to type "à bientôt" with a circumflex over the "o", I need to type the "ô" by first touching the delete key, then flick left twice to give focus to the "o". Then I need to do the double tap and hold to get the accented combinations. It is possible, but tedious. I generally do the double tap and hold in the text area above the virtual keyboard. For an accented letter "e", I flick to the right from the text area to the start of the keyboard, past the "q" and "w" letters. (If you are using a French "a z e r t y" keyboard, you would type your accented "a" by flicking once right from the text area, and you would type your accented "e" by flicking right again past the "z".) I am very happy touch typing accented characters on my iPod Touch, and rather unhappy with the status of touch typing accents on the iPad. (Not only is touch typing accents still not fixed in the latest OS 3.2.1 iPad update, there are still no signs of the language rotor for the iPad in the Settings menu.) You have two alternative solutions for typing accented characters: (1) use a Bluetooth keyboard like the Apple Wireless Keyboard, or use the iPad Keyboard Dock with your iPod Touch or (2) use the TextExpander touch app and define custom snippets for typing accents or accented words. If you use either the Apple Wireless Keyboard or the iPad Keyboard Dock, you can type accented characters as though you were typing on a Macbook laptop keyboard. It is possible to set the hardware and software keyboard for your desired language under Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboards > French (for example, or any other selected language). For an English language input keyboard, I can type the accent key combination using the standard keyboard with the use of the option key on either the Apple Wireless Keyboard or the iPad Keyboard Dock. acute accent - Option+e grave accent - Option+accent sign (on an Engish input keyboard, this is the leftmost key below escape and above tab) circumflex accent - Option+6 (this is different from on a Macbook, where I would use Option+i; the Shift-6 combination on an English input keyboard gives the "^" (caret sign), which has the shape of the circumflex accent diaeresis - Option+u cedilla - Option+c tilde - Option+n (for Spanish and Portuguese) All the above keys are typed as accent plus accented letter combinations: you first type the option key combination for the accent, then you type the letter that you want to be accented. If you type a space instead of a letter, only the accent mark is typed. So, for example, to type "à" (a with a grave accent), you would first press the Option and accent sign keys together, then you would press the letter "a". To type "â" (a with a circumflex accent), you would first press the Option and "6" keys together, then you would press the letter "a". If you pressed the space bar instead a letter following the Option+6 combination, you would be left with just the circumflex accent mark. Some other accents are generated by pressing two key combinations to generate the letters: German eszett or sharp ess - Option+s Nordic slashed o - Option+o "oe ligature" - Option+q This is similar to, but not exactly the same as the way accents and special characters can be typed with Option key combinations on the Mac. Normally, I would type a "c" with a cedilla on my Mac just using Option+c. On the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad with an Apple Keyboard I need to press the Option and "c" keys, and then press the "c" key by itself again to get a "c" with a cedilla. I suspect that the French hardware keyboard entry, and those of other languages, may similarly be slightly different from the way they are used on the Mac. What has mostly happened is that option key combinations that were used for mathematical symbols have been removed. Amusingly, the Option key combination for typing the Apple logo on English language Mac keyboards (Option+Shift+K) has also been removed. The general way to find out what particular option key combinations work for your selected hardware keyboard (e.g. French AZERTY input) would be to connect an Apple Wireless Keyboard or iPad Keyboard Dock to your iPod Touch (or iPhone, or iPad), switch to the input language of your choice (if you have your language rotor set to use more than one language) with Command+space (to move to the next input language keyboard) or Command+Shift+Space (to move to the previous input language keyboard), and then to start typing keyboard combinations while holding down the Option key and other modifier keys (such as Shift). Since a few more obscure symbols are not announced by VoiceOver on the iPhone/iPod Touch, although they are typed, I generally type these tests into a file that I can check out in TextEdit with VoiceOver on my Mac. I'll separately post a longer list of special symbol combinations with the Apple Wireless Keyboard and iPad Keyboard Dock under iOS 4, but for now, I'll simply add the option key combinations for typing the inverted question mark and exclamation point symbols used for Spanish: ¡ inverted exclamation mark Option+1 ¿ inverted question mark Option+Shift+slash (Shift+/ is question mark) The second method of typing accented characters on a virtual keyboard, that works for the iPad, is to use TextExpander Touch (an iPhone app by Smile On My Mac), and define custom "snippets" for typing accented letters or words. This allows me to type accented letters with key combinations that automatically change to accented letters, as well as easily type special characters and symbols. I believe that Yuma, a member of the CeciMac (French) mailing list has also set up her iPad this way. You would have to compose the text within the TextExpander Touch app and copy or then send it on to another app in the case of mail. Alternatively, there are about two dozen apps that will natively work with the TextExpander Touch snippet definitions. Among the default snippet definitions that you can activate is a group called "Accented words". To read more about the way TextExpander works, you can check the archived link on: "TextExpander app for easy HTML creation, typing Spanish, etc.": http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/msg22416.html That post first answers a question about how you could use the Desktop version of this app to create HTML code, but the second part describes using it as a shortcut method for typing Spanish accents, and links to an article that supplies a snippets definition file for expanding accents in Spanish. The same snippets file used for the Mac Desktop version of the TextExpander software will work in the iPhone app, TextExpander Touch. The post also gives an earlier link to specific discussion about the TextExpander Touch app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, and how to download various predefined snippets definitions, including one for accented words. Most iPhone users who use the TextExpander Touch app will use it for straight substitution -- for example, to define a combination of letters that will expand into a four line signature when typed. However, it's possible to customize TextExpander Touch for accent typing, as well. This is likely to be a special interest use, though, and the app is a bit expensive at its regular price of $4.99. TextExpander Touch ($4.99) by SmileOnMyMac: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textexpander/id326180690?mt=8 HTH. Cheers, Esther On Jul 13, 2010, at 07:48, Jean-Philippe Rykiel wrote: Dear all, I know that few of you will be concerned with my problem as you, Lucky English speaking folks, don't have to use these à or â or é characters. But I'm having problems accessing these characters with the new touch type mode on my iPod touch. These characters are usually linked to their corresponding letter so that what you would normally do is double tap and hold a letter and slide your finger to get all the alternatives to this particular letter. With the new touch type mode, it gets a little bit harder , but it still should work if you select a letter by hitting it very briefly and double tap and hold anywhere on the screen. The problem is that it works sometimes but not always and I think it's a bug. I sent a mail to Apple access ability, but all I got was this automated reply saying that they thanked me for my feedback and blah blah blah. Is there anyone I could send this bug report to, who would give me a more constructive answer? all the best, JPR http://www.facebook.com/jprykiel http://myspace.com/jeanphilipperykiel -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
