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Keyboards for Unicode-based Windows systems

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Monday, February 4, 2002, 1:44
I downloaded a copy of Tavultesoft Keyman Developer the other day, which
lets you edit keyboard layouts for Unicode-based Windows systems (that is,
NT, 2000, and XP). It seems a bit overpriced for what it does ($50.00), but
I'll probably save enough time by being able to edit my own keyboards to
justify the cost. The good news is that the Keyman (Keyboard Manager)
program is available separately, and is free for personal use.

http://www.tavultesoft.com/keyman/

So if anyone out there has a Windows NT-based system, I've put together a
few keyboards that might come in handy.

http://www.io.com/~hmiller/kmx/

I've been using a lot of IPA lately, so it's good to finally have a
convenient way of editing it. I created two different IPA keyboards:
XSIPA.kmx (which is based on X-SAMPA) and CPAIPA (based on Jörg Rhiemeier's
CPA). The idea is that you type in X-SAMPA or CPA, and the output appears
in IPA on the screen. But there are a few quirks with these systems (which
were designed as ASCII substitutes for IPA rather than an input method), so
I'll probably end up making some changes after I've used them for a while.

The LatinA.kmx enables you to type any character in the Basic Latin,
Latin-1, and Latin Extended-A blocks. Diacritics are entered with {^} for
diacritics above the letter, {_} below the letter, and {=} for lines and
slashes that go through the letter. Ligatures and other special characters
are created by typing the {+} key (for example, {ae+} for an ae ligature,
or {L+} for the pound symbol). There's also {%}, which turns a character
180 degrees (currently only used for the inverted Spanish punctuation
marks). To enter one of the special characters, precede it with a backslash
{\}. I'll probably be changing things here and there, especially when I
start adding Latin Extended-B and Latin Extended Additional characters to
the keyboard. Eventually I'll also add shortcuts using the right Alt key
for frequently used characters.

Finally Cherokee.kmx lets you type in Cherokee. Most of the characters are
entered by typing the Latin equivalent, with the exception of the "nah"
character (which is typed {nh} to avoid conflicts with "na" followed by one
of the "h" characters). (You'll also need a Unicode font that includes the
Cherokee letters, such as Code2000.)

--
languages of Azir------> ---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/lang/index.html>---
hmiller (Herman Miller)   "If all Printers were determin'd not to print any
@io.com  email password: thing till they were sure it would offend no body,
\ "Subject: teamouse" /  there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin

Replies

BP Jonsson <bpj@...>
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>