I am running Mac OS 10.4.7 on various G4's and G5's.  While I don't use 
Keyboard Viewer all that much, I find its behavior to be reliable and 
predictable.  Are my computers working better than those described by 
others in this thread?  Or am I content with features that are problematic 
for others?  Are the Intel Macs behaving differently than the G4's and G5's 
in this regard?

When I select Keyboard Viewer in Word, or in any other application, the 
Keyboard Viewer window pops up for the currently selected keyboard.  If I 
change keyboards, using the flag icon in the menu bar, the Keyboard Viewer 
window immediately changes to the newly-selcted keyboard.  If I launch a 
new application, the Keyboard Viewer will be visible for the new 
application, showing the most recently selected keyboard.  This makes sense 
to me.

Confusion may stem from an interesting feature of keyboard selection (and 
consequently, of the Keyboard Viewer).  Keyboard selection is now 
window-specific (beginning with some version of Tiger).  Each window can 
have a different keyboard selected, both for general typing and for 
Keyboard Viewer.  For example, I can type in one document window with a 
French keyboard, and in another with a Spanish keyboard.  Switching between 
windows will switch the selected keyboard, and the Keyboard Viewer, if it 
is open.

Now and then, I find this to be very handy.  On a busy day, I may be 
working on a document in English in Nisus Writer Express, editing Spanish 
exam questions in one Word document, while preparing a French viewing 
schedule in another Word document, and answering an email in Esperanto.  I 
can set my desired keyboard for each task and window, and then click 
between windows freely.  Each window will retain my desired keyboard.

The original poster indicated that while working in Word, "I have to click 
on the desktop and then scroll the flag to the proper keyboard."  I find 
this curious.  I can change keyboards freely within Word, and I never have 
to click on the Desktop.   The poster then reports, "When I click back into 
Word, however, the keyboard viewer reverts back to the U.S. keyboard."  I 
think this is just an example of the window-specific nature of keyboard 
selection.  I would restate the observation in different terms:   Clicking 
back into Word doesn't revert to the US keyboard.  Rather, it retains my 
previous keyboard selection for that window, which might have been US, 
Spanish, French, Dvorak, or another.  I can select a different keyboard in 
the Desktop, without affecting the keyboard previously selected for each 
window of any open applications.  (However, I don't see any value in 
selecting a keyboard for the Desktop.  I find that, unlike any application 
window, the Desktop doesn't retain its own keyboard setting).

In contrast to Keola, I find that Tiger (OS 10.4.7) not only retains the 
keyboard choice for a given application, it remembers the keyboard 
selection independently for each open window within an application.  For 
me, Panther 10.3.9 was neither window-specific nor application specific. 
When I selected a keyboard in one application, it would affect all other 
applications and windows.

I would be interested in hearing what behavior other Mac users experience, 
and whether the Intel Macs act differently than the PowerPCs.

Derek

> Aloha. I began noticing this behavior with the first release of OS X 10.4.
> Previously it remembered your keyboard choice within an application, but
> now it does not. I've notified some people at Apple about this, but it
> seems that this is what they consider the desired behavior. I've not found
> any way to remedy this; there is no setting for it that I have been able
> to locate. If anyone else has I'd appreciate hearing about it myself.
>
>> Has anyone come across this issue?  I've set keyboards for all the FLs we
>> cover on an Intel Mac.  When I'm in Word testing the various FL keyboards
>> and I bring up the keyboard viewer to use while typing, I have to click
>> on the desktop and then scroll the flag to the proper keyboard.  I see
>> the change on the keyboard viewer fine as it should be.  When I click
>> back into
>> Word, however, the keyboard viewer reverts back to the U.S. keyboard.


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



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