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January 16, 2004

Little Things

Often it is the little things that make a difference. I used to use a program called KeyCaps to help find the key sequences that I rarely use (like what do you press to get the apple symbol: "?" - shift-option-k). Well at some point in time the program vanished and I sort of made do with the character palette. Then MacAddict point out that you could get the modern equivalent by clicking 'Keyboard Viewer' in System Preferences (System Preferences->International->Input Menu):


In the magazine, the picture of the 'Keyboard Viewer' window looks like a full keyboard. When I run it, it looks like this:

That is exactly what my keyboard looks like (even down the scrunchy arrow keys). It is only a small thing but that is what Apple often does well - getting the little things right.

BTW You can see part of this article behind the Keyboard Viewer - just to show it was done in real time.

Posted by Ozguru at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM

Comments

I should have pointed out that clicking on the images will bring up a larger picture. You don't have to squint at those thumbnails. I use them to stop the page loading too slowly.

Posted by: ozguru at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM

Sent this page to my honey. He's a MacNut.

Posted by: Da Goddess at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM

I like that 'MacNut' phrase. I would be guessing that if someone likes the WINdows Gui then they would be a WingNut? Mental picture of ears being used to twist the head on a Windblows fan.....

Posted by: ozguru at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM

Dont' twist a "wingnut's" head to fast, it'll fall off.

Posted by: Greg at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM

Little Things (Followup) To make my post a bit clearer, here is the same snapshot from an iMac - note that the keyboard now looks like the one on an iMac instead of an old PowerBook.

Posted by: GDay Mate at January 16, 2004 12:01 PM