--- 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]