gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield) (01/09/88)
I think the recent postings about accented characters show that the KeyCaps DA doesn't handle dead keys correctly. If you bring up KeyCaps and type option-`, the option and ` keys in the keyboard diagram briefly turn black, but nothing else happens. In particular, the keys which will be accented do not change. For instance, the "a" key square keeps showing "a", when it should change to "a-overstrike-`". Now that someone has mentioned it, I'm sure Apple will fix this in the next release. You're welcome.
syap@ur-tut.UUCP (James Fitzwilliam) (01/10/88)
In article <4523@watdragon.waterloo.edu> gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield) writes: > >I think the recent postings about accented characters show that the KeyCaps >DA doesn't handle dead keys correctly. > >If you bring up KeyCaps and type option-`, the option and ` keys in the >keyboard diagram briefly turn black, but nothing else happens. In >particular, the keys which will be accented do not change. For instance, >the "a" key square keeps showing "a", when it should change to >"a-overstrike-`". As far as I know, KeyCaps was always meant to work that way, i.e. the same way the keyboard does (or what good is it?) When you type option-`, of course nothing happens, since that keystroke cannot generate a value until you tell what character you're accenting. (It doesn't "make" the character by overstriking. e-accent grave, a-accent grave, etc. are all distinct high-bit ASCII values. Typing option-`-a merely tells the Mac you want ASCII 250 rather than 246, or whatever.) If you type option-` THEN a (or e, or u) you'll get the right thing in the bar. [ If the Mac produced the accents by overstriking, you could get any accent on any character, like a caret over small r for Antonin Dvorak. But there's only room for 128 high-bit characters, so if you type a dead key followed by a letter it doesn't have in the set, it gives the accent character alone. ] Notice -- when you hold down the option key in KeyCaps, all the "dead" keys do show their proper accents! The "u" key becomes an umlaut, the "e" key a french accent, the "i" key a circumflex, clearly showing which dead accent you'll get by typing option-whatever. As long as you know how to use the dead keys, which you seem to, you're all set. Really all KeyCaps is for is to remind you whether "bullet" is option-8 or option-b, whether circumflex is option-i or option-u, without having to poke the whole damn keyboard blindly. Hope this helps. Good luck! James arpa: syap@tut.cc.rochester.edu uucp: rochester!ur-tut!syap =======================================================================
gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield) (01/12/88)
In article <795@ur-tut.UUCP> syap@tut.cc.rochester.edu.UUCP (James Fitzwilliam) writes: >In article <4523@watdragon.waterloo.edu> gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield) writes: >> >>I think the recent postings about accented characters show that the KeyCaps >>DA doesn't handle dead keys correctly. >> >>If you bring up KeyCaps and type option-`, the option and ` keys in the >>keyboard diagram briefly turn black, but nothing else happens. In >>particular, the keys which will be accented do not change. For instance, >>the "a" key square keeps showing "a", when it should change to >>"a-overstrike-`". [I should have said "a-with-an-`".] > >As far as I know, KeyCaps was always meant to work that way, i.e. the >same way the keyboard does (or what good is it?) When you type option-`, >of course nothing happens, since that keystroke cannot generate a value >until you tell what character you're accenting. ... If you type >option-` THEN a (or e, or u) you'll get the right thing in the bar. My point exactly. KeyCaps _doesn't_ work the same way the keyboard does. If I type option-`, the "a" key square in the KeyCaps window continues to display an "a". But if I actually press the "a" key, I do not get an "a" character in KeyCap's text line; I get "a-with-`". When a "dead key" combination like option-` is pressed, the key squares for all of the keys which are affected by that "accent" should display the "accented" version of the character, and they should keep displaying them until a character is generated. For most fonts, this may not seem important. If you want to find the set theory symbols that are hidden as accented characters in Symbol font, this is essential. >Really all KeyCaps is for is to remind you whether "bullet" is >option-8 or option-b, whether circumflex is option-i or option-u, >without having to poke the whole damn keyboard blindly. If it worked the way I want it to, it would also remind you where "logical not" is in Symbol font. It would also remind you which accent-character combinations exist. My (rather old) Mac manual tells me which option keys generate accents, but it doesn't tell me which keys those option keys affect. Last week I did "poke the whole damn keyboard blindly" to make up a list of dead key combinations so I could see what they generated in Symbol font.