[Macworld.com]

If, like Gail Goldyne, you mourn OS X’s lack of a Key Caps utility, look no farther than the international system preference. [more]

[salem41]

It may have been so for 10.3, but it isn't for 10.4.3.
"show keyboard viwer" no longer exist, and the keyboard can no longer be accessed.
Try it and see.
I recently tried to use it, and found it was gone in the latest OS versions.

[spimster]

Those preferences show up and work just fine for me.
I get the Keyboard Viewer and Character Palette from the top Menu Bar flag icon.
Or you can find Keykaps ... which duplicates most of what you want.
Versiontracker has a bad link atm though.
BUT ... even better in my opinion is the OS 9 utility KeyCap 1.1.
This utility would show the ENTIRE character set AT ONCE in columns.
You wouldn't have to hold down the modifiers (shift, option, command).
You can also see a larger version of a typed character at 2x or 4x.
Very nice. I like it so much that I don't mind the extra few seconds to launch Classic.
edit -- Heh .. it's actually from System 7 time .. 1995.
I never seen its features duplicated (doesn't mean it hasn't, 'cept I ain't seen it).

[Chris Breen]

I took that screenshot on a Mac running 10.4.3. I've just checked another Mac running Tiger and it too has this option. I'm not sure why you aren't seeing it.
Chris

[matheau]

Art Directors Toolkit gives you that info. Check out its Symbol utility. Comes free on PowerMacs and PowerBooks.

[Graeme_Smith]

You can customize what appears in the input menu. Make sure you have the "Keyboard Viewer" enabled. Hope that helps! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[MagnusDredd]

Keyboard Viewer is useless.
The iMacs here are set to run OSX at 1024x768. 800x600 is really too cramped for MS Word, the school website, and OSX in general.
Unlike Key Caps, Keyboard Viewer's keyboard and letters/symbols are too small for my users to read.
I have yet to find a 3rd party utility to replace it with. I have just grabbed a copy of Key Caps from 10.2. Until I grabbed the copy of Key Caps from 10.2, the language teachers had given up and simply wanted a list of the key combinations for the accent marks.

[earthsaver]

Alternatively, use the cool AppleScript, KeyViewer, to present the Keyboard Viewer palette. This is especially useful if you use a productivity tool like LaunchBar for quick access. A similar utility, CharViewer for displaying the Character Palette is also available. (I renamed the latter CharPalette for the sake of intuition.

[Dan Frakes]

Yep, KeyViewer is very cool -- and, like you said, great for use in combination with something like LaunchBar. I covered it in our recent Software Bargains feature:
http://www.macworld....ains2/index.php

[OM_user]

In reply to:

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Unlike Key Caps, Keyboard Viewer's keyboard and letters/symbols are too small for my users to read.

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Ah, that's an easy one to fix! Just click the zoom button on the keyboard itself, and it expands to around 2x the size. Big enough to see all the letters and symbols! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[durandal343]

Do your teachers use key combos for symbols and accent marks when typing? I have never understood this. People would write these 20 page papers in Spanish and every single time there was an accent mark they would do some ridiculous key combo. Mac and Windows allow you to remap keyboards. It is much easier on a mac but windows can do it too. I showed a windows friend once on his machine and freed him forever from the alt-number sillyness.

[leroybrown]

In reply to:

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Mac and Windows allow you to remap keyboards. It is much easier on a mac but windows can do it too.

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I never really felt a need to do this on the Mac until I learned how to touch-type on German keyboards - until that time it really was easier to do the optionuvowel to get my umlauts. On a PC, however, learning how to touch-type would be far easier than memorizing and using those alt+number commands. Bah!
I remember seeing a concept keyboard that could switch keycaps on the fly... Too bad I can't find it. THAT is a cool concept.

[MagnusDredd]

durandal343:
There's no way that I'm going to allow completely computer illiterate users to remap keys on a general use lab machine.
Personally I don't mind learning the key combos. My main complaint with that method is that under Windows, M$ Word is inconsistant with the standard key combinations. By the way, the teachers had been using "insert symbol...", since most of them have problems with the complexity of using key combos. If you're thinking "huh, what complexity?", it's because I'm trying to express the level of cluelessness of some of the users.
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OM_user:
You're referring to the maximize key I'm guessing. I was unaware that it would double the size of the window. However, after examining it, I think it should be large enough to view now.
Thank you, that should help alot.
Kevin

[uchuugaka]

multi-lingual input has always had issues.
keyboard layouts are different in most countries and there's just no easy work around when you need to service many languages in one place.
but for spanish and german, most good word processors have preference settings to spell-check and auto-correct for those languages. In german, typing two characters will give you an umlaut character that represents the two anyway.
Japanese keyboards have one thing right: there is a key for the @ character without pressing shift!
Perhaps, the smart keyboard will arrive eventually. Using the backlighting that apple already has in it's PBs,
and very small, simple LCDs in each key, you could have a keyboard that can be remapped easily except for the shape of the keys...