Settings KeyboardSettings/en
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Keyboard Settings[Bearbeiten]
This dialog controls if dead keys are handled and presents the mapping from Ctrl- and Cmd-Keys to edit functions.
You find these under "Extras" → "Settings" → "Look & Feel" → "Keyboard ".
Dead Key Processing[Bearbeiten]
This can be enabled globally via the keyboard settings dialog, or locally for individual editor views.
If dead keys are enabled, some characters act as "Dead Key,
these are not printed but will modify the next character typed.
To get the dead key itself inserted, either press it twice or followed by a space or cursor movement.
Typical dead key sequences are:
- " (double quote) followed by a vowel, to get German Umlaut characters ä, ö, ü or other language's diacritical characters with two dots above (ÿ, ë etc.).
- French accents are entered by ' (quote), ` (backquote) or ^, followed by the character, to get é, è, ê etc.
The c-cedille is entered with , (comma) followed by c.
- Spanish "ñ" (n-tilde) by ~ followed by n.
Dead key handling can be enabled locally via the code editor's menu ("More" - "Misc" - "Dead Keys") or globally via the settings dialog (in "Look and Feel - Keyboard Settings").
In some apps (Workspace and System Browser), this may also be found in the lower-right info&status area, as a popup of the edit mode field (the one, which shows "I" for "insert mode").
Global dead key enablement is a session flag and defaults to false, because most programmers feel hindered by them, when entering program code.
To enable it by default for all views, add the following line to your
"display.rc" or "private.rc" file:
WindowSensor deadKeysEnabled:true
Of course, you can also evaluate this in a workspace.
To disable, evaluate:
WindowSensor deadKeysEnabled:false
Be aware, that national and other special characters can always be entered via the middle-button's "Special Characters" menu item (in any text window).
Language Specific Dead Keys[Bearbeiten]
You can choose if the dead key handling should handle all possible (Unicode) characters with diacritics or only those which are relevant in your language.
For example, if you choose all, the sequence "e will generate the character ë which is not used eg. in German.
Whereas, if you select German dead keys, that sequence will be ignored and only the sequences "a, "o and "u will generate a dieresis ("Umlaut").
Dead Key followed by Space[Bearbeiten]
In expecco, you can configure if a space character following a dead-key will insert both the dead key and the character or not.
The default setting is different from other systems, where the space is "eaten" and only the dead key is entered.
We found this inconvenient for programmers, where strings or comments with initial space are relatively common. If you do not like this feature, evaluate (in a Workspace or code editor):
WindowSensor deadKeyEatsSpace:true.
Keyboard Mapping[Bearbeiten]
Expecco uses a keyboard map, which maps keys with modifier to logical functions. For example, this map defines a mapping from Ctrl-c to the logical function Copy.
This mapping is initially read from a file at startup ("display.rc" in the expecco installation folder, or in your home's ".expecco" folder).
Keyboard Macros[Bearbeiten]
The editors also support keyboard macros. These are scripts written in Smalltalk which are executed when the corresponding key is pressed. These are useful if repeated edit operations are to be performed on longer text or data documents; however, they need some background knowledge and coding by adding those scripts to the above listed startup file(s). Notice that the Workspace also provides operations for bulk processing in its "Edit" menu, which might be easier to use.
For permanent changes, copy and modify this file as required in any text editor (the expecco FileBrowser can be used for this).
Ad-Hoc Macros[Bearbeiten]
Editors start to remember your actions with the Learn key, and repeat that action when the Execute key is pressed. By default, these are mapped to Ctrl-F2 and Cmd-m.
Useful for a short sequence of edit operations which have to be repeated multiple times. For example, to insert a new column to a CSV table in the editor:
- position the cursor in front of the column,
- press Learn to start learning,
- type the characters to insert (such as "0" followed by a semicolon),
- press Shift-Return to navigate to the next line,
- press CTRL-w possibly multiple times, to skip to the same column as before (but in the next row).
- press Learn again, to leave the recording mode.
It is essential, that the mouse is positioned where the next macro execution should begin, when repeated.
Now press Execute to have the next row edited. And repeat until done.
This kind of ad-hoc macro is also useful, when pasting tabular data into an elementary code editor, to make its syntax compatible to the selected programming language. For example, to convert separating semicolons into commas or to enclose words into quotes, as is required for eg. JavaScript or Python JSON encoded data.
Back to Look & Feel Settings
