This is perhaps the greatest find in the history of conlangs *drool* I'm oogling over it and working on it at this very moment.
I know a LOT of you have special characters for your conlang when you're transliterating it and it doesn't really help you that you have to use all of those alt + whatever pieces of crap and it gets worse when you make a new conlang because you have to memorize all of that bologna.
Well... now you can just make your own keyboard layout and forget about ALL THAT ALT+ BOLOGNA!
It's a little difficult to figure out and you kinda... have to have windows to run it.... maybe there's something out there for mac that's not at all my point. Mac users are "special". I'm sure they'll find something sweatdrop
Anyway, here's the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx
It's official Microsoft software so there's no worries about safety. If you open Help > Contents it tells you EVERYTHING you need to know and even gives you a step-by-step walkthrough (not common for MS to be so user-friendly) and I'll be adding my own tutorial (with IMAEGZ!) by the end of this week.
I'm so proud of my find 3nodding But if someone has already posted it here it doesn't really make me all that special and I'll prob'ly cry...
Anyway, if this was stickied (since it is another conlang utility) that would be great. I mean, Forgedawn could just add the MS link to his "Conlanging tips, refs, etc." thread but there's so much info here and I'm planning on making a tutorial so it might be better if we just stickied this one.
HAVE FUN!
Tips:
- If you're finding that you don't have enough keys in the main alphabet section of the keyboard, make sure you're not including letters your conlang doesn't need. Don't worry at all about trying to include all the characters used in English (or your native layout). If your language doesn't use C, Q, W, or Y... don't add them to the layout. Reserve those keys for other characters you need for your conlang.
DEAD KEYS ARE YOUR FRIENDS! If you don't know what a dead key is just ask. Someone will explain it to you (me if I see it first)
AltGr is your friend! (Again, ask if you don't know)
For simplicity's sake, try to keep your letters in the same place as they normally are on your keyboard. (i.e. don't try to make a new layout based on the frequency of each letter in your language and end up working for nothing because you forgot that when you press D you get Z or something weird like that)
Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map
If you want your conlang to be internet-compatible please only use characters from the Times New Roman character map. This ensures that you're not using characters that might not display on some browsers.
If you don't care about internet-compatibility and want to use some really crazy characters, I suggest the Lucidia Sans Unicode character map.
Feel free to PM me with whatever you want.
If you'd like to add any tips please PM them to me and I'll include them with your name.
