Speaking of Libraries .... (now keyboards, and getting OT)

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On 10/29/2011 3:25 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: [AltGr key]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key

Thanks. It seems to not always do what that says, however.

But what keyboard type have you set up in the "Region and Language" control
panel?

Using a regular US English keyboard but telling Windows that it's a UK
English keyboard the right-hand ALT key (aka AltGR on non-US keyboards)
doesn't do too much, but there are a few:

AltGR+3 is the Euro symbol 4, actually
AltGR+{aeiou} is {áéíóú}; add SHIFT to get uppercase.
AltGR+Top row, first key is vertical (broken) bar

€áéíóúÃÉÃÓÚ¦
I am in UK, and Windows knows I have a UK keyboard.

What I meant was, it doesn't always _work_: not under all applications.
I can't say now which do and which don't.

Additionally:

SHIFT+Top row, first key changes from ~ to <PL/1 negation>

or "open single quotes" as some people have it.

Shift+2 changes from @ to "

Yes, odd that - @ and " are opposite way round on UK and US; I've never
known why.

Shift+3 changes from dollar to pound

We still have $, it's just on Shift+4.

SHIFT+Second row, last key changes from | to ~

Odd that; I'd have thought the tilde was more needed in America, with so
much more Spanish. I don't think I ever saw ¦ or | on a British
typewriter in the days before computers, though, whereas ~ was there.
(IIRR on some typewriters it didn't advance the carriage, so you could
type the n without having to backspace.)

SHIFT+Third row, last key is @ (double-quote on US keyboards) See above.

Occasionally I have to use a machine where the layout has reverted to
the US, so I have to sort of know the US one.

Some years (decades?) ago, I remember seeing a keyboard with little LCDs
in the keys, but I haven't since; I suppose it cost too much. Pity. I
also once found a completely blank keyboard, which delighted my blind
friend - she is a touch typist, and liked having a keyboard few sighted
people could use!

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

There is "UK" layout and also "UK Extended" layout which gives extra
dead-keys like AltGr with ^ followed by vowels, not quite as good as
the old DEC compose sequences though ...

Do you mean Alt-Gr ^ (a three-key combination) followed by o would
generate ô? That would be most useful! I've looked in control panel
under Keyboard and under Regional Settings, but I can't find "UK
Extended" though - should I be looking somewhere else?

Before Win7 (maybe before Vista, I wouldn't know, never touched it)
there was a setting in control panel that determined if the advanced
text features were "forced" on all apps or not, it's been moved or
removed in Win7.

Again, I've looked - where is it?

Actually, for ô above (and similar), I use Diacrit (from
http://www.sandrila.co.uk/diacrit/), which is useful - OK, it _could_ be
described as just a variation on Character Map, but I find it quicker.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Yes, but it's only two keys (AltGr is a single key, the righthand Alt
if it's not marked on your keyboard, you don't need to press shift with
6 to make it a caret), so really AltGr 6 followed by vowel, a few
others too

I'm afraid it isn't working for me (XP) - o - that was AltGr 6 followed
by o. Alt-Gr e does work - é.

AltGr with tilde (ok, hash) then letters e.g. ã
a

AltGr with c, eg ç

That's been bagged by another application (brings the Connect window to
the fore).

AltGr with 2 then letters e.g. ö

o - I'll just try with the USA position of ", o - nope.

Annoyingly, I don't know of a way to get grave accents, or the German
long 's'.

Me neither! (If I'm in a hurry, I just use a B. Since the ess-zett [sp?]
never occurs at the start of a word, it's usually unambiguous.)

Regional, Keyboard, then use the Add Button and it's somewhere under English

I'm in XP: Control Panel, Regional and Language Options - no sign of
Keyboard. Ah, hang on: CP, R&LO, Languages tab, Details ... click on
Keyboard, Add: I get a drop-down list, with 13 Englishes in it, but none
of them are Advanced. I get this same list elsewhere.

That's what I mean by moved or removed - I can't find that option now,
it used to exist for XP.

Ah. Anyone in the XP 'group know?

 

[James Silverton]

Sounds as though your machine is a bit over confused whether it's got
two ALT keys, or an ALT and and ALTGr ... is it a laptop?

You are not describing something for the US qwerty keyboard are you?
There are sequences that have mnemonic value and work in MS Word; for
example CTRL-` followed by e to get è (e grave). They don't work for
composing e-mail even if you can use the ALT-ascii method (if you happen
to remember the ascii number). I suppose it might be useful to have a
desktop shortcut to the ASCII table.

--


James Silverton, Potomac

I'm *not* (e-mail address removed)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Sounds as though your machine is a bit over confused whether it's got
two ALT keys, or an ALT and and ALTGr ... is it a laptop?

It's a netbook, with an Alt key to the left of the space bar, and an
AltGr key to the right.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Using the UK Extended keyboard setting:

<backtick or "opening single quote"> (top row, first key) is a dead key; if
the next key is {aeiouwy} then the character generated is that character
with an grave accent (accented w and y are used in Welsh text). If any
other key is struck the tilde and that character are emitted as two separate
characters.

`a ¦a - that was ` then a, followed by AltGr-` then a; as you can see,
they each come out as two characters.

Acute accents can be added to {aeiouwy} by either striking that character
with AltGr depressed, or by AlgGr+' followed by the appropriate letter key.

áéíóú - done with the AltGr key and aeiou; AltGr-w brings up something.
AltGr-y doesn't seem to do anything.

aeiou - altgr-' doesn't seem to do anything. So we're _possibly_ getting
somewhere: for me the AltGr plus aeiou work, but the AltGr plus
something else _followed_ by things doesn't work.

AltGr+# (second row, last key) followed by n yields ñ. Similarly, AltGr+2

n - nope. a - nope.

followed by {aeiouwy} adds a diaeresis, and AltGr+6 plus {aeiouwy} adds a

a - that was altgr-6 followed by a. á - that was altgr, 6, and a all at
once.

circumflex. (SHIFT+2 is a double quote and SHIFT+6 is a circumflex; this
gives mnemonc value to the use of 2 and 6 here.)

The only way I know to get the sharp-S character ß on a US or UK keyboard is
to use ALT+0223.

Of course, all of this assumes that your current font defines those
characters in their usual place.

I'm just using courier, under XP SP3.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Oh, I thought you were using win7?

Yes, I understand the confusion, as that thread had somehow got back to
just the 7 newsgroup.

The "extend support of advanced text services to all programs" option
that I previously mentioned should still exist for you then ...

I can't find it though!

And AFAIR the AltGr sequences for used to work OK on XP too with UK
extended.

Well, I haven't got this "extended" (or can't find it); without it, I
can get the combinations (áéíóú etc.), but not the sequences. At least,
I'm just guessing that it's the lack of the "extended" that's the reason
- it might have nothing to do with it.