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March 2003, Week 3

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From:
LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 19 Mar 2003 09:35:13 EST
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--- Forwarded Message from Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 17:33:05 -0700
>From: Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]>
>To: LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Custom Mac keyboards

At the CALICO Annual Symposium in 1993, I learned how to create
custom Mac keyboard layouts for myself, faculty and students.  This
was a big help in my work.  The nationalized keyboard layouts that
come with modern operating systems are designed for the residents of
various other countries.  They are seldom optimum for students who
spend most of their time typing on a standard US keyboard, but for
one class, need to type in a different language.  For teachers, the
difficulty may be greater.  Many of our learning materials and some
or our correspondence will contain two languages in almost every
sentence.  Using standard key combinations and sequences for the US
or International keyboard layouts is slow and sometimes hard to
remember.  I suspect the same is true for language teachers in every
country.  A custom keyboard is better for most of us.

I recently discovered the Wordherd web site, which greatly simplifies
the creation of custom Mac keyboard layouts:

http://wordherd.com/keyboards/

Although this site is titled "Unicode Keyboards for Mac OS,"  it will
generate non-unicode keyboards as well, for OS 9 and 10.   For those
using OS 10.2 and above, keyboard layouts can now be XML documents
(which Wordherd can generate, along with several binary file
options).  XML keyboard layouts are easily installed, managed, and
edited in any text editor.  This is handy for making simple changes,
such as renaming the layout.

The web site is free and the layouts are generated within one or two
seconds.  Puzzling out the rules for specifying my desired custom
keystrokes took me about half an hour, following the directions and
examples at the site.  The command string for one of my keyboards,
which creates a new dead key and generates 12 custom characters
(while maintaining all the standard keyboard functionality) is:

; ; $20:;$20 C:$0108 c:$0109 G:$011C g:$011D H:$0124 h:$0125 J:$0134
j:$0135 S:$015C s:$015D U:$016C u:$016D

It looks weird, but it is not overly long or complex.  Most of the
funny numbers above are the Unicode values for the characters that I
wanted easy access to.  If you only want to change a few keys or get
access to a few characters, that can be done very quickly.  I have
been experimenting with Wordherd for about a month, and have been
very successful.  Give it a try, if you are interested in custom Mac
keyboards.

Derek

Derek Roff
Language Learning Center, MSC03-2100
Ortega Hall Rm 129, 1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505/277-7368, fax 505/277-3885
Internet: [log in to unmask]

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