[Macworld]

Post your comments for PopChar X 4 here

[lkrndu]

How curious. Spend 47 $ for something that's already built-in to OSX?????
All you need do is open 'International' System Preferences and check the 'Show keyboard menu in menu bar' box. Then you can click on the menu bar icon and - voilá (just used it, in fact, for that a-accent-acute) - you've got a floating window with everything you might need right there.

[ghmetcalfe]

NO comparison. I used to use the sys prefs way, but when trying to locate a specific dingbat or character in a specialized font (like music notation) the tiny view available through the apple keyboard viewer is basicly useless. I'm a recent convert to Popchar X (although I used to use it in OS9), and it's great. For anyone using different character sets or specialty fonts, it's a must have.

[TeaEarleGreyHot]

ghmetcalfe wrote:
>the tiny view available through the apple keyboard viewer is basicly useless
I agree 100%. Nevertheless, I do think the shareware fee for the otherwise nice PopChar utility is unreasonably high.
APPLE: Please make the keyboard viewer LARGER!!

[Rhywun]

Yeah, I found this program too expensive even in comparison to their other offerings (e.g. Typinator - which is fantastic BTW).
Also, their prices are in Euros - which is another reason it's so expensive for an American like myself. Thank goodness I bought Typinator more than 2 years ago, before the dollar really started to sink.

[steppenwolf111]

I agree with lkrndu. I'm using the international keyboards (German system, Slavonic languages), and they are really working fine. I do not see an advantage of PopChar X 4 in comparison with it. What I'm missing however is the possibility to change between the country specific keyboards by keyboard shortcuts or - the best - to insert foreign letters by shortcut (best would be systemwide usability). Does anyone have a solution? Thanks.

[JudyRay]

Just click on the green button in the keyboard viewer, and it gets bigger.
I am still using Tiger. It should work in Leopard also.

[alansky]

Personally, I use the Character Palette, which is built into OS X. PopChar X is a good tool, but very expensive (imho) for what it does.

[PeteRonai]

imkdu says: "...and - voilá (just used it, in fact, for that a-accent-acute)..."

What imkdu needs is an application that inserts the correct accent (voilà takes a grave accent, not an acute accent).

[lkrndu]

PeterOnul cain't reed! What imk-doo SED wuz, e wantz duh key combo fer accoot-aks-sent! Grumble. Senz wen's Petey so con-serned?? 'Sides, in eye-talyun it's all 'bout the grave. And that's right here on my keyboard. Just hit the ' (apostrophe) key. E voilà. Like dat :) Now it's just to find a cute thingy for the acute . . . oh nevah minD.

[rlav]

Irrespective of the relative merits of PopCharX over OS X's character palette and keyboard viewer, this is a strange review. If you were tasked to write a review of the latter native utilities, you could paste in this review's 3rd paragraph and do a couple of substitutions and you'd be pretty much there. The fact that the similarity is not even acknowledged, and the comments here not anticipated, is curious.

[rocketmouse]

For steppenwolf111 ("insert foreign letters by shortcut (best would be systemwide usability)"):

What I do is copy the characters I use the most from wherever they are, International Keyboard, Character Palette, a.s.o, which puts them into Jumpcut (it's free, google it.) Then when I want to insert one all I have to do is click on it in Jumpcut, available from the menu bar (I put it in Login Items to have it always avalable.) And voilà (<g>,) systemwide usability--don't even have to change keyboards or go find it in Character Palette. And just in case I need to clear my Jumpcut list (it only keeps 99 of them) I also have them in a text file so I can copy them back. If someone has an even simpler method I'd love to learn about it.

[mayachaya]

I am most interested in this review, but so far I've not seen my particular difficulty addressed. (Most likely, I don't know the correct terminology.)
I am creating a web site which will be bilingual, English & Spanish. So far, I have no problems viewing the results on a Macintosh, but whenever someone uses a PC, the accents and tildes of the Spanish words become distorted (squares for the accented characters, for instance.)
So, I am inputting the characters correctly, but the internet output is not right on most PCs. (The software author stated that his "newer PC" displayed the characters correctly.) Yesterday, I tried the site on a PC with Vista, but the problem remains.
I would love some direction here! Thanks so much.