Keyboard shortcut for keyboard Viewer

Hi Waully,

You should be able to create one for "Show Keyboard Viewer" in System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > All Applications,
unfortunately it seems they don't work properly.
--> Feedback !

A quite simple way is to use Control+F8 then the Arrow Up key then Return.
Place first the International input menu in first position in the menubar (command-drag it).
Of course Full Keyboard Access (control+F1) is always on.

Axl

Hi, Waully, AxL and Tom —

Waully, please accept a warm, if belated, welcome to Apple Discussions!

AxL — you may be right that "You should be able to create one for "Show Keyboard Viewer"
. . . unfortunately it seems they don't work properly."

Here's an alternate view: as the Mac OS X 10.4 Help article Creating global keyboard shortcuts says, this tool carries two constraints —

Note: You can create keyboard shortcuts only for existing menu commands. You cannot define keyboard shortcuts for general purpose tasks such as opening an application or switching between applications.

I'm not quite sure why these constraints are enforced, but...

Keyboard Viewer (though technically a "Component") is an application ( <small> /System/Library/ Components/KeyboardViewer.component/Contents/SharedSupport/KeyboardViewerServer .app/Contents/ MacOS/KeyboardViewerServer</small>). So "foiling" this attempted shortcut may be intentional.

Your crafty use of "Full keyboard navigation keyboard shortcuts" works well as an alternative. I guess access to the Keyboard Viewer could also be made available via a <small> Contextual Menu.plugin</small> — but I don't know how.

Tom, I'm not familiar with KeyKaps. But I've used Character Palette and Keyboard Viewer from my Dock — by just opening them, then minimizing to cram them into the Dock. And they stayed — without being "official" Login Items. How does KeyKaps accomplish this differently — I must be missing something?

In any case, good work! and

Cheers!
Dean

Thanks Dean for the detailed and well documented comments —as always.

I never used Jaguar, but I was used already with Panther, to my created keyboard shortcuts working perfectly for a while, then vanishing for no reason...

Now with Tiger, with biovizier we saw another kind of problem, with Finder's Recent Items created shortcut not working for example, or with keyboard navigation not getting "UpArrowards" directly from the bottom of a menu (if needed): Now you need to patiently "scroll" the ArrowDown key...

<small> "I'm not quite sure why these constraints are enforced, but..."</small>
...they shouldn't 🙂
And if it is so impossible to create this kind of shortcut, why then does it actually show in the input menu after a logout/login?
We also successfully created a shortcut for another user Name, in order to switch users effortlessly, BUT, again, it has to be "showed the way" by firstly activating Control-F8.

—> Feedback! and

Cheers!
Axl

Hi, AxL —

Thanks back-atcha for your thought-provoking reply... also as usual.

I guess if the Mac OS weren't muddling along, reaching toward — but not quite reaching —
its goals ———> we'd all be bored!

I'm presently exploring the apparent foibles (or is it insufferably sublime wisdom?) of a couple of what, to me, are as-yet-mysterious and mischievous OS X 10.4.x Tiger oddities: the "new (non?-)pre-binding" and SystemUIServer's guardians-***-vengeance. New threads to come when I've something worth saying . . .

As to excruciating shortcuts — none have ever really bothered me, to be honest. One of the great things about Mac OS over the years is that there's always another way to get where you're going!

Bemusedly yours,
Dean

<small> p.s. I used OS 9.x forever (still do) — skipping Cheetah through Panther, and landing in the Tiger's lair... quite recently. Makes things a bit more exciting!

p.p.s. The biovizier link went home to the Profile page — is that what you intended? or did you have a thread in mind for us to peruse? </small>

You didn't mention what languages you need to be using Keyboard Viewer for, but to the extent they use Latin script, you can probably type them all from just the US Extended layout if you want, using a list like the one here:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/diacritics.html

How does KeyKaps accomplish this differently � I must be missing something?

KeyKaps is just an Applescript for launching Keyboard Viewer. I see now that the download link is dead anyway, though if anyone wants it I could send them a copy. One of its advantages was supposedly to reduce the instability that one sometimes encounters with Keyboard Viewer when launched in its usual way.

Waully -- Yes, I can see why you need Keyboard Viewer easily accessible! Sounds like you might be interested in a new keyboard I have seen which will have lcd's on each key that will change as you change your layout:-)

Waully -- you might try the program KeyKaps, which lets you open Keyboard Viewer from the dock.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14993