Hello everyone!
I have a question to those who have to use diacritical marks (e.g., "á", "í" etc. - these signs written above a letter) when typing. It's more about preferences so I decided to post it here, not in the answers section.
The question is: what input method do you personally use if you have a regular English keyboard?
I've never had to do it before and now I can't get my head around it. It's relatively easy to type diacritics using a smartphone but it all gets more complicated when it comes to using a laptop. There are lots of suggestions on the internet but... well, "Ctrl+Shift+letter" and some other combinations work in MS Word but do not work in internet browsers for some reason. "RightAlt+letter" for acutes works in Google Chrome but doesn't work in text editors other than MS Word (maybe I'm doing something wrong though...). The copy-paste method is simply masochistic.
The only thing I've tried that works everywhere is using Alt Codes. Does anyone else use them? If yes, is it possible to remember all the combinations you need?
@Coligno, ah, it works!! Finally! Thank you very very much! Not sure if I really need the ponc séimhithe (people don't use it anymore in Irish, do they?) but I've downloaded some fonts - couldn't resist - and ha, now I can type everything as in Dinneen's dictionary! Magic!
What a shame it didn't automatically improve my Irish as well lol
@Natasha, большое спасибо за подсказку насчет Alt+769! Мне в основном нужны акуты, так что очень пригодится, если буду не со своего компьютера. Я уже с печалью смотрела на комбинации типа Alt+0225 для á и Alt+0193 для Á (хотела бы я взглянуть в глаза тому, кто присваивал символам эти номера… ужасно удобно, знаете ли!). Но да, конечно же, все не так просто: в строке моего браузера Alt+769 после любой буквы просто выдает смайлик. Спрашивается, почему так? Где тут логика?..
The US international keyboard layout. An accented character is typed with a two keys sequence. First you press the key for the kind of diacritic you want (acute/grave/circumflex accent, diaeresis), then the key of the letter you want with that diacritic on.
It's something many Irish learners ask, so much so that someone wrote this to help them:
www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/sracan/english.html
(If you have a browse through the SMO website you'll find lots of other useful resources for Irish)
I personally use the Cló Gaelach keyboard (you can download it at www.gaelchlo.com/windows.html), which has all the diacritics you need for Irish (including the ponc séimhithe: ṗ, ṫ, ċ, etc. and the tironian et ⁊), Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German and anything else that uses the same diacritics.
@tano, thanks a lot for the link! Now I understand what the problem was. It seems like I have a UK physical keyboard (!"£$) - no idea why - and thus to make it work I have to change it (to UK Extended), not the US keyboard. The only thing that's left is to figure out how to delete the US keyboard now (for some reason it's not in the list in the Settings menu but it's there when I have to switch between the keyboards). I also need Russian (Cyrillic), Chinese (Pinyin), so having 3 Latin keyboards seems a little bit excessive haha.
@Paul, I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one here who at least considered using the Alt Codes! But you're right, it seems like it's easier to install another keyboard or something, "cumbersome" is not a strong enough word (though maybe it's easier for someone with a really good memory). Thanks a lot for your answer!
Again, many thanks to all of you! I definitely should have asked this question earlier, you're really helpful.
