Accents and special characters with only one key for input and edit - Easy but beyond me.
Submitted by Peter Fox on Sun, 10/26/2008 - 19:10.
A fast and zero learning curve solution to accents
I write this because I have no idea how to implement something very simple but streets ahead of the alternatives in UI terms. Look at http://vulpeculox.net/ax for a pretty description and working application that demonstrates how to do it under Windows.
Accents and special characters are a hassle. How is someone supposed to do their French homework without spending ages pecking at charts, memorising key sequences or key codes? The answer is they use a tiny utility that works as follows
- Cut the character to the left of the cursor.
- Look it up in a string that cycles accents (part :...eéêëe... )
- Paste the next character in the string at the cut position.
- Job done! (Well it is in Windows)
This works for editing existing text as well as new input and is very fast as your brain soon works on autopilot pressing the magic function key as many times as required. There's no learning curve to speak of and no mouse actions or shift keys necessary.
The bulk of the development effort is in the configuration, as for example a typical user might want to switch between languages. As mentioned above, I've done this for Windows[1] and the source and configuration files are freely available in the download from the website above. I would have thought that a prototype proof of concept could be built in minutes by someone who knows how to hook the keyboard for a function key and backspace,cut and paste to the screen.
[1] For one symbol set and 11 European languages.