Custom Characters

Introduction

Custom Characters allows you to use text characters that are not easily entered from the keyboard. Is is intended to be an alternative to the Chars application which is supplied with all Acorn computers.

Custom Characters is different from other character selecting utilities, in that it allows you to choose which characters you want to appear in the character window, and where you want then to be in the window. This is quite simple to do- no programming knowledge is required! You can create many character layouts and save them so that they are always available from Custom Characters' menu. Some example layouts are provided to get you started.

Using the program

Double-click on the !CustomChr icon. The program will load onto the iconbar as usual. Clicking on the iconbar icon will open the currently selected character window.

Characters in the character window can be clicked upon to enter them at the caret. If the caret is currently in a writable menu or a dialogue box, clicking the mouse in the character window will close the dialogue, and you will have to start again. There are two ways of overcoming this:

1. Position the pointer over the character you require, but press Shift instead of clicking. This is the method used by Acorn's 'Chars', and most other character programs.
2. Use the 'Magic entry' option. This allows you to click the characters, but leaves the dialogue box open! (as if by magic?!) This is explained in more detail below.

Click inside the window with the menu (middle) button to open the character menu. This allows you to select which character layout is displayed in the window. If you create any of your own 'custom' layouts, they will also appear in this menu.

The iconbar menu

• Info - This gives the usual information about the program.
• Characters - Sliding off this item is another way of accessing the character menu (also available by clicking menu over the character window).
• Font - Sliding off this reveals the font menu, which will contain all the currently installed fonts. This allows you to change the font used in the character window.
• Shift entry - Select this item to toggle shift entry on and off. If shift entry is selected, pressing shift enters the character currently under the pointer to allow entry into dialogue boxes etc. You may occasionally want to switch this facility off though; it can be a nuisance when you are typing away, press shift to type a capital letter, and end up with an unexpected ellipsis or Faroese character!
• Magic entry - Select this item to toggle the magic entry facility. If magic entry is enabled, the pointer changes to a hand when it is over the character window. You can now click characters, and they will be entered at the caret- even if the caret is in a dialogue box or writable menu! This means that you can always enter strange characters without worrying about the shift key.
  Note - the pointer may occasionally remain as a hand, even though it has left the character window. If this happens, clicking a mouse button will return the pointer to normal.
• Save status - this saves the currently selected character layout, the window position, the current font, and all the menu options so that they will be selected by default next time the program is started.
• Quit - this ends the program, removing the iconbar icon as normal.

You should now be able to use all of the features of the program to access the example layouts supplied. Once you are familiar with the program, it is far better to create your own character layouts, with just the characters you want, positioned as you wish. To do this, read the section below...

Creating your own character layouts

Character layouts are simply textfiles containing the characters you want. They are stored in the directory !CustomChr.Characters. To access this directory, hold shift and double-click on the !CustomChr directory. You can now double-click and open the Characters directory. This should contain several textfiles. You may wish to look at these as examples when you are reading the instructions below.

The first line in your textfile should be the title for the character window.

The second line is the width of each character 'button' in OS units. You do not need to know what this means; making the number higher makes the buttons wider, a lower number makes them more narrow. Usually you will use 52, as this gives square buttons.

Subsequent lines contain your list of characters. Each character should be on its own line, followed by return. (Of course, these characters will often not be available from the keyboard, so you should use Custom Characters' full character set window or Acorn's Char application to enter them.)

As an alternative, you can use the characters ASCII code; for example type 65 for capital A. If you want to include a comma (,) in your layout, you must use its code (44) otherwise you will confuse the program.

If you want to start a new line in your character window, include the symbol
\\
on its own line.

• You can include as many of these as you want
• Lines of characters do not have to be the same length; Custom Characters will size the window to accommodate the longest line
• If you do not include any \\ all the characters will appear on one line

When you have finished entering your list of characters, be sure to press return after the last one.

Now, save the textfile into the Characters directory. The filename you choose will be the one displayed in the Characters menu, so choose something meaningful. If you now quit and re-load Custom Characters, your layout should appear in the menu and you will be able to use your layout.

You now know everything you need to to create simple character layouts, and for most layouts this is all you need to know. It is, however, possible to have even more control over how the characters appear in the window, and this is described below.

Creating advanced character layouts

As an example, look at the Qwerty and QwertyC layouts supplied with Custom Characters. Notice that the buttons are all different widths, and some are in different colours. Notice, also, that if you click on the green 'C', the program switches between the two layouts. You can use all of these features in your own layouts. Instead of just listing a character, you can use a special command to describe the features of the character. This takes the following format:
(character displayed),(character typed),(button width)

• The displayed character is what you will see in the character window. The typed character is what will appear when you click the button
• Each part of the command is separated by commas
• You do not have to include all parts of the command:
  • If you omit a typed character, the displayed character is used as the typed character
  • If you do not include a width, the default width (from the start of the file) is used
  • You must include a displayed character
• You can use the ASCII code, or the actual character (where possible) for the displayed and for the typed character
• If you use the ASCII code for the displayed character, you can add a (colour number)*1000 to it. For example, 65 gives a black A, but 9065 gives a yellow A (The colours follow the usual 16 colour desktop palette, except that 0 is black and 7 is white)

If the above description seems a little complicated, the following examples will hopefully make things clearer:

Command         Meaning
-------         -------
A               Black 'A' which when clicked types 'A'
65              Does the same as above
11065           Red 'A' which when clicked types 'A'
7065,a          White 'A' which types a lower case 'a' when clicked
X,,104          Black 'X', types 'X' when clicked, button twice usual width
<,127,80        Black '<', deletes when clicked, 80 pixels wide
121,,32         Black 'y', types 'y' when clicked, narrower than usual
0,0             Black '0', types '0' when clicked
0,00            Black '0', types ASCII 0 when clicked (note the two digits)

You will already have come across \\ to start a new line. But if you include a number after the \\, a gap that many OS units will be left between the two lines. Examples:

\\              New line
\\4             New line, leaving a slight gap
\\52            New line, leaving a line
\\-8            New line, overlapping the line above slightly

You can leave a gap between two buttons on the same line by using >>>x (where x is a number). Examples:

>>>4            Leave a slight gap between the last button and the next
>>>52           Leave a gap 1 button wide
>>>-16          Overlap the last button slightly

You can also include >>> commands at the start or end of a line to leave larger gaps at the edges of the window.

The final command which you can use is the link command. If you include this in your file, button that you defined before the link command will load a different layout when clicked instead of typing a character. This is regardless of whether you specified a typed character of not.

The syntax of the link command is:
L:(filename) where (filename) is the filename of another character layout

Examples:

A               Black 'A' which loads file 'Char1' when it is clicked
L:Char1         

15070,,104      Light blue 'F' wide button, loads file 'French' when clicked
L:French

Q,?,40          Black 'Q', narrow button, load file 'Quotes' when clicked
L:Quotes        (does not type a '?')

You should now be able to reproduce any of the examples supplied with Custom Characters, and create your own advanced character layouts.

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