On Mar 11, 2010, at 8:25 AM, Andrus wrote:
> On 2010 Mar 10, Wed, at 11:24 am, Kino wrote in part:
> under subject of: Interim report
>>
>> My previous feature request was to add "Toggle Language" and "Next Language" commands to NWP and allow users to assign command-space and command-option-space as shortcuts for them. When I harassed Martin with my repeated requests, he answered that there seems to be no means to override Apple's defaults shortcut keys. Using command-right/left arrow would be a good idea for some people, but personally, I prefer command-L and command-shift-L because they are in (nearly) the same physical locations in any physical keyboard.
>
> Indeed, arrow keys would usually be a poor choice for language switching, being outside the normal touch typing area. However, I did not in the least intend to imply that it should be used for that. The point was that I thought in years past, even with ResEdit, we could not seem to get user control of the use of arrow-keys with command nor anything else.
>
> However, I just experienced assigning cmd-right to a macro despite the fact that so far as I understand, cmd-right is apple assigned to go to end of line, and it works very well in cocoa and even the Finder which is not cocoa (at least in OS 10.4)! So, that really leads me to question why, or if, or how, does Apple lock us or developers out of using cmd-space.
I don't know but, as for arrow key keyboard shortcuts, it makes sense not to make them immutable because there are simple applications in which you don't or can't move the insertion point. In them, it might be handy to assign right-arrow to Previous button and left-arrow to Next button, for example.
> I have not had good enough experience with editing plist files directly to feel like I'd tested anything with such a hack, but what would happen if the unicode number for space were substituted in the Nisus plist for the macro keybinding? Would it ignore, work, beep, or do some inexplicable thing?
You can assign command-space and command-option-space to NW macros by using defaults command or by editing com.nisus.NisusWriter.plist. Their symbols will appear at the right of macro names. However, they do not work.
> Could the caps-lock key be used? (it is a mostly useless key to me) For two languages only, it might be very useful if the LED indicated the active language! :-)
Caps lock is something very special. It is impossible for end users to let NWP know the state of Caps lock key. So you cannot use it to switch NWP's language although perhaps that could be achieved by using a key remapping program like this.
<http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/index.html>
A problem is that Caps lock is already used by Japanese input methods as an optional way to change input mode (Kotoeri and other Japanese input methods are not keyboard layouts but programs consisting of several modules for different input modes). Perhaps used also by input methods for other languages, e.g. Chinese.
That said. I can think of at least one advantageous way of using Caps lock. For example, if you are writing mainly in English but often need entering Greek letters not as those belonging to Greek language but as symbols, it would be handy to have an English keyboard layout that Caps lock transforms into a Greek Symbol keyboard. Years ago, I created such a keyboard layout for fun.
<http://quinon.com/files/keylayouts/RomanSymbol.zip>
I don't know if it still works in Snow Leopard but I think it works in Tiger. If you want to create something similar but more adequate for your needs, you can use Ukelele developed by John (Brownie).
<http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele>
But why is it called so? Ukelele is not a keyboard instrument.
Kino
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