Ola Lindberg

I have been using Svorak (a Swedish variant of the Dvorak keyboard layout) for some years, so I’ve had the chance to use it under some different operative systems. The standard Dvorak layout is available in all (?) operative systems but the Swedish variant is available out of the box in Linux only. Luckily there are ways to install a layout, that you then can select from your keyboard settings, it in both Windows and Mac OS X. It works fine for the most part.

One issue I have been dabbling with a lot is that when switching between layouts, both OS X and Windows, it changes per application. This means that if you have Firefox and Notepad opened you’ll have to switch layout twice to get it in both applications. It’s really annoying if you switch a lot (for example if you do pair programming and switch every 10 minutes). Other annoiances are that multiple layouts sometimes seems to cause problems with inconsistent shortcuts between the layouts (i.e. ctrl-c means ctrl-c in one layout but not in the other).

Svorak with AutoHotkey

Instead of installing a keyboard layout I’m now running AutoHotkey to remap my keys. It’s a tool that allows you to create macros, so I have one (big) macro that remaps my layout from Swedish to Svorak. It works perfectly! It also makes it easy to customizatie my layout (e.g. swap CapsLock with the Left Shift key). AutoHotkey also allows to generate an executable file that’s easy to put on a USB stick and bring to other computers. Just start it and it remaps the keys. Close (or pause) it and you’ll get the Swedish layout back.

The Svorak A1 layout extended for the Kinesis Contoured

Since I’m using the Kinesis Contoured keyborad I wanted a layout optimized for that. My modifications to the Svorak A1 layout are:

• Swap CapsLock and Left Shift. It made Shift much easier to reach.
• Duplicate all AltGr key compinations from the right hand to the left. I did this to be able to write for example curly brackets with two hands instead of stretching one. (There is one layout called Svorak A5 that also have the AltGr combinations on the left side similar to mine so check that out as well)
• I’ll probably remapp the Insert key to some better location than the standard (for the Contoured keyboard); Keypad + < combination.

I created different tray icons for Swedish and Svorak but I couldn’t get AutoHotkey to change between them. Hopefully I’ll be able to fix that later.

Download my Svorak A1 (extended for the Kinesis Contoured) AutoHotkey script file (you’ll need to install AutoHotkey as well). Download icon and layout files

Svorak with PortableKeyboardLayout

Another flexible way of remapping the keyboard layout is to use the tool PortableKeyboardLayout. It currently supports several different layouts but not Svorak so you’ll need to install both the program and then add the layout by copying it to the layouts folder. You’ll also need to change the layouts definition in pkl.ini to: layout = dvorak-svorak-a1:Svorak A1 (Extended). Several different configuration possibilities are available, unfortunately I couldn’t find any documentation (the project is really new so that’s probably change soon!).

I ran this for a while and it worked fine! I had some issues with some GTK applications (i.e. Inkscape) but try it out. It’s really nice!

Download my Svorak A1 (Extended for Kinesis Contoured) PortableKeyboardLayout (you’ll need to install PortableKeyboardLayout). This file also contains the layout (SvorakA1Extended.klc) for the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. This file was used to generate the PortableKeyboardLayout file but it can also be used as a native keyboard driver. See Microsoft KeyboardLayout Creator help for more information about that.

PortableKeyboardLayout has the possibility to display an image of the layout you are using. Unfortunately couldn’t I manage to generate the image in the correct format so there aren’t any such image for the Svorak A1 layout.

I have been playing around with Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) some days and it’s really great for stitching several images to a panorama! The only thing missing is a way to open images in ICE from Picasa without needing to locate them in Explorer.

I created a button that you can add to Picasa that opens the selected images in ICE. It’s available for automatic installation or manual installation. If you choose manual installation copy the file to <your user folder>\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2\buttons. If you want to remove it from Picasa you can delete the file from that directory. The pbz file contains two zipped files; one XML-file and one icon file. See Picasa Button API for more information about Picasa Buttons.

Prerequisites:

• Picasa Installed. I used the version 3 beta.
• Microsoft ICE installed. Note! It must be installed to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Research\Image Composite Editor

Issues / TODOs:

• There are a hard coded path for the ICE executable. I tried to find a registry key for ICE but I found none so you must install Microsoft ICE to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Research\Image Composite Editor
• The icon and text on the button doesn’t look quite alright. It works but looks a bit lame.
• Try to send a path where ICE should save the stitched image so it defaults to the same location as the unstitched.

I’ll try to fix the above issues. See my post in ICEs forum.

If you are using Flickr you might also want to check out picasa2flickr and if your are using Gimp the Gimp Picasa Button!

As a quick sidenote; I just found out about an option in Windows that allows to move the mouse cursor to one of the buttons in dialog boxes automatically.

For the longest time I have been using aoeu.info for all my Dvorak information. But some days ago when I needed a Swedish Dvorak keyboard layout for Mac OS X I found the site down. I searched around for a while but couldn’t find any Swedish Dvorak layouts for OS X so I decided to build my own. I found a tool called Ukelele which helps you create your keyboard layout.

Download: OS X Swedish Dvorak keyboard layout version 0.1

The layout looks like this:

And this with the shift key pressed:

And this with the Apple key pressed:

If you have any concerns or questions just post a comment here and I’ll get back to you.

Magnus (from aoeu.info) if you get your site up again I am happy to redirect users from this post to aoeu.info instead. Just post a note here.

Update: aoeu.info is now up and running again!

WHYY Radio Times had (2006-04-26) an intervju with Don Norman (the author of the book; The Design of Everyday Things) about smart design. It is worth listening to. It’s available as both mp3 and Real Audio.

Visit: WHYY’s Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane web site for more information.

Update: Added URL to the Radio Times web site.