Aleontiou13

Q: change language from keyboard

I want to change from one language to another using only my keyboard.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 31, 2015 10:14 AM

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Q: change language from keyboard

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  • by dialabrain,Helpful

    dialabrain dialabrain Jan 1, 2016 12:28 AM in response to Aleontiou13
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jan 1, 2016 12:28 AM in response to Aleontiou13

    I don't think that's possible. You might be able to write a script that would work.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Dec 31, 2015 12:33 PM in response to Aleontiou13
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 12:33 PM in response to Aleontiou13

    Aleontiou13 wrote:

     

    I want to change from one language to another using only my keyboard.

     

    For that you do Control plus Space.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Dec 31, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 31, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Not on my Macs.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Dec 31, 2015 2:26 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 2:26 PM in response to dialabrain

    BEfore el capitan it is Command plus Space.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Dec 31, 2015 2:53 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 31, 2015 2:53 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Dec 31, 2015 4:32 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 4:32 PM in response to dialabrain

    dialabrain wrote:

     

    Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support

     

    A great example of incompetent Apple technical writing, where they just took the text from the Yosemite version without checking to see if it was still right for El Capitan.  So  Apple's own doc

     

    Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 5.29.39 PM.png

     

     

     

     

    is totally wrong:   It says the shortcut for changing input sources is Command plus Space, when in reality it is now Control plus Space, and there is no longer any conflict with Spotlight, which remains Command plus Space.

     

     

     

    Screen Shot 2015-12-31 at 5.16.20 PM.png

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Dec 31, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 31, 2015 4:56 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Interesting. I am running OSX 10.11.2 and here's what I see…

    modified.png

    I know I can change the shortcut of course. But, my question is, doesn't that just change the keyboard map? I thought the question was originally how to change the language itself.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Dec 31, 2015 5:26 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 5:26 PM in response to dialabrain

    Very interesting!  Some users deliberately change Control - Space back to Command -Space because they don't want to learn a new shortcut, but this is the first time I've seen it that way from the beginning.

     

    I read "language" here as meaning the input source.  It's a pretty common question from folks who don't want to use the mouse to switch via the "flag" menu in the Menu Bar.  I've never heard of anyone wanting to change the language of the OS menus and dialogues from the keyboard.  You are correct that this would be impossible.

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Dec 31, 2015 6:02 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 31, 2015 6:02 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    In my case, I only speak one language so it's not a feature I've ever used. The screenshot was from my 2 month old 5K iMac and my only explanation is perhaps when migrating data to the new machine, a old settings file was dragged along with everything else.

     

    Beats me.

     

    I suppose I don't know if the user wanted all the menus etc. to change.

     

    Anyway, Happy New Year.

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Dec 31, 2015 6:26 PM in response to dialabrain
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Dec 31, 2015 6:26 PM in response to dialabrain

    DOes it stay that way if you do Restore Defaults?

  • by dialabrain,

    dialabrain dialabrain Dec 31, 2015 6:31 PM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 5 (5,900 points)
    Mac App Store
    Dec 31, 2015 6:31 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

    I can't actually tell because I changed the shortcuts. It didn't switch back however when I chose Restore Defaults.

  • by Aleontiou13,Solvedanswer

    Aleontiou13 Aleontiou13 Jan 1, 2016 12:30 AM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 1, 2016 12:30 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Thank you very much , Tom. I got it.

    Happy New Year from Athens, Greece to all.

  • by gruberg,

    gruberg gruberg Feb 13, 2016 1:00 AM in response to Tom Gewecke
    Level 1 (7 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 13, 2016 1:00 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

    Tom, I have a similar, but slightly different problem. I'm running OS X 10.10.5 (still a bit wary El Capitan) on a MacBook Pro with a US physical keyboard. I write text in a number of other languages, but I prefer to keep the keyboard flag set to the US, so that the keyboard types what it says on the individual buttons--otherwise it just gets too confusing. Yesterday, however, the keyboard flag started switching on its own accord, perhaps somehow context-based, though I haven't been able to discern the pattern. Any ideas on how to revert to a status wherein the flag stays where I've set it manually without then trying to get cute, but actually becoming very annoying? Thanks

     

    PS: my own hypothesis is alluded to in the following chat: OS X Yosemite: Change the language your Mac uses, where I'm specifically referring to the section:

    • Change the primary language: Drag a different preferred language to the top of the Preferred languages list. If OS X or an app supports the primary language, menus and messages are shown in that language. If it doesn’t, it uses the second language in the list, and so on. The language may also be used on websites that support the language.

    Which implies that some of the apps/websites I use have suddenly stopped "supporting" languages other than English?

  • by Tom Gewecke,

    Tom Gewecke Tom Gewecke Feb 13, 2016 5:10 AM in response to gruberg
    Level 9 (79,055 points)
    Feb 13, 2016 5:10 AM in response to gruberg

    gruberg wrote:

     

    I prefer to keep the keyboard flag set to the US, ..... Yesterday, however, the keyboard flag started switching on its own accord,

     

    Have you gone to system prefs/keyboard/input sources and removed all the items except for US?  If you do that, then it should not be possible for the flag to switch to anything.  (system prefs/language doesn't really have anything to do with the keyboard layout).

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