What's new in Ukelele 2.0? Completely rewritten Ukelele 2.0 has been completely rewritten, with a new interface which includes a more integrated window with a toolbar, scalable views, and an improved inspector palette. It is now built with a much more modern framework that takes advantages of features of Mac OS X 10.4 and later. Support for bundles and icons Since the introduction of the XML keyboard layout format, it has been possible to package one or more keyboard layouts in a bundle, which is presented to the user as a single file. With previous versions of Ukelele, though, bundles had to be constructed by hand, which was not an easy task. Ukelele 2.0 introduces full support of bundles, allowing you to create bundles easily, edit keyboard layouts within bundles, and package multiple keyboard layouts in a single bundle. Also, associating an icon with a keyboard layout is made more simple, whether the keyboard layout is saved as a simple file or as a bundle. Printing support A completely new feature is printing of keyboard layouts. You can now print a keyboard layout, and choose whether to show all dead key states or the current state, and all modifier combinations or just the current one. Using the standard Mac OS X printing dialog means that you can also save the printed version as a PDF file. Simplified editing actions By introducing a status bar at the bottom of the window, many information dialogs have been eliminated. Instead of a dialog to click through, instructions are given in the status bar, which lets you get to work more quickly. There is now a toolbar in the window, which gives you one click access to a range of common functions such as creating dead keys. The menus have also been reorganised to be more logically consistent and easier to navigate, with fewer submenus. One-click editing An option in Ukelele 2.0 is to use a single click to edit a key’s output, rather than a double click. This is set in the preferences. Capability to capture the current keyboard It is now possible to take whatever keyboard layout is active and capture it as a keyboard layout file for editing in Ukelele. This is handy when you don't have a keyboard layout file for the keyboard layout you want to use, but have a resource file, for instance. Display of combining diacritics improved When a key output is a combining diacritic, it is now shown in combination with a placeholder character. You can choose which character to use, with the default being a dotted square. More support for comments Previous versions of Ukelele only allowed editing of comments at the top level of the keyboard layout. Apple’s tools for creating XML keyboard layouts from older formats (KCHR and uchr resources) adds lots of other comments, and users may want to add comments to specific keys. Ukelele 2.0 allows access to all comments in the XML keyboard layout file, and allows you to add a comment to any particular key stroke, for documentation or other notes. Search for output characters There is a new command in the Edit menu, Find... This allows you to search for a key stroke sequence that produces a specified output string. The key stroke sequence is displayed in the status bar and the final key stroke is displayed in the main keyboard window. Colour Themes As of 2.0b6, the colours in the main keyboard window are customisable via colour themes. A colour theme specifies the window background colour, the text colour, and the colours used for key caps in the various states (up or down, ordinary, dead key, or selected), along with options for gradients. Colour themes are stored in an XML file, and can be shared among users. The appearance of printed keyboard layouts is affected by the definition of the Print colour theme. Previous page Next chapter