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garybeckwith
Known Participant
April 4, 2011
Question

Special character keystrokes changed ?!?

  • April 4, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 3873 views

I recenly upgraded from FM7 to FM9.

I noticed that some of the special character keystrokes have changed.

For example, to make the multiplication symbol, in FM7 I used to hit control-q 4 using the symbol font.

Now when I do the same,  I get a different symbol.

The only way I can get the multiplication symbol in FM9 now is using the character pallete, which is a pain.

Others have changed too.... for example the degree symbol used to be control-q 0.  Now it appears to be control-q shift-1.

I have a handy Keystroke chart from FM7 that listed 12 pages of special character keystrokes.  I guess I'm supposed to just throw that out the window?

so my questions are...

Does anyone know the keystroke sequence to get the multiplication symbol?

Is there a special character keystroke list for FM9?  I found in the User Guide PDF they list some, but the multiplication symbol is not there.  It would be great to have a comprehensive list like I had for FM7.

Any help is appreciated.

Gary Beckwith

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

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    garybeckwithAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 6, 2011

    OK now this is getting weird.

    I'm on a laptop without a numberpad so the alt-code solution wasn't ideal for me.

    as a last resort, I started experimenting with the control-q.

    I found that there are many more special character keystrokes than what is listed in the Frame Help Files.   For example, the multiplication symbol, which started me off on this in the first place, can be rendered with the control-q 0 (regular font) keystroke sequence.   In FM7, it was control-q 4 (symbol font).

    similarly I found I could get the greater-than-or-equal-to symbol with control-q 8 (symbol font) will provide this symbol, while in FM 7 it was control-q 3.

    There seems to be no documentation of this.  The help file only lists a few special character keystrokes, not including either of these.

    How many more of the lost symbols could be found with through experimentation?

    Why don't they tell us all the new keystrokes for all the symbols available?  Why did they only put a few in the help files and leave us to guess what the others are, or if they exist at all?

    Why did they change them in the first place?

    Another weird strange thing I found is that the character pallete in FM9 is really screwed up.  If you mouse over a symbol, it is supposed to give you the name and hex code of that symbol at the bottom.  However these are all wrong.  When I mouse over the multiplication symbol, it says it is an "accute accent".  In fact all the symbols are named wrong.  I have no idea if the hex codes are also wrong.  here is what I mean:

    What the ....?

    I don't really care that much if the names are wrong, as long as it works, but it is strange that they would all be wrong like that.

    I'm much more interested in the new control-q codes.  for FM7 we had a handy PDF that listed 12 pages of control-q codes, with the shift key, symbol font, etc.   Has anyone found, or created, something similar for FM9?

    thanks

    gary

    A
    Anonymous
    April 6, 2011

    Gary, this might help you. Go to www.brightrpathsolutions.com. -- Ron

    Ron Tillotson

    Technical Writer

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 6, 2011

    Go to www.brightrpathsolutions.com. -- Ron

    404

    If that's actually (no "r" after "bright"):

    http://www.brightpathsolutions.com

    there doesn't seem to be anything regarding special characters there (any more?).

    G
    garybeckwithAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 5, 2011

    thanks for the responses everyone.

    unfortunately I'm using a laptop and it doesn't have a number pad.   so I guess that means I'm SOL for the multiplicaiton symbol and any others that aren't included in FM9's selection of special character shortcuts, and the only thing I can do is open up the character pallete....

    hard to understand why they would take those features away, or make it work only on the numberpad.  what's wrong with the numbers on the keyboard?  Sigh.

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 5, 2011

    ... or make it work only on the numberpad.  what's wrong with the numbers on the keyboard?

    Alt+Numpad is a Windows UI feature, and not a Frame UI feature (and didn't work on Unix for that reason). Ask Mr.Bill why he restricted Alt to working only with the numpad keys (probably because Alt+topline keys had other uses).

    Historically, the number entered was merely the position of the glyph in the (8 bit) code page. There is a new method for Unicode, which has rather more than 256 glyphs per font.

    Don't give up just yet. Many laptops have an embedded numpad mapped onto QWERTY keys. If I ever knew, I've long since forgotten what keystrokes enable that emulation. You might check your laptop documentation. It might be as simple as finding a NumLock key, or some Fn sequence.

    When the QWERTY keys are in numpad emulation, I'd expect the Alt sequences to work.

    A
    Anonymous
    April 4, 2011

    Symbol

    "official"   name:

    Decimal

    Hexidecimal

    Unicode





    times

    multiplication sign

    		21500D7

    u2715

    So for the times symbol, hold Alt down and type 0215 on the numeric keypad ***

    *** important, not the numbers at the top of the keyboard, and of course with the keyboard's numlock set to "off"

    FM9 "lost" some of the keyboard shortcuts.

    http://www.microtype.com has a $25 utility called "toolbar plus" that gives great access to a lot of FM symbols; it's good for FM8, which means that it's unicode-aware the same as FM9.

    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 4, 2011

    Jetsetcom.net had a couple of handy 1 pager of FM9 shortcut posters on their website.

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 4, 2011

    I noticed that some of the special character keystrokes have changed.

    Urk. And the hex codes appear to have changed too. I would have thought that Adobe would have remapped them for Unicode (if that's the problem), but apparently not.

    I don't know the FM9 mapping for multiply, but I do have a separate tip.

    I only ever type special characters (or more usually, hex codes), into create Variable dialogs.

    Multiply, for example, would be:
    Name: char.symbol.multiply
    Definition: <Symbol>\xb4<Default ¶ Font>

    ... where Character Format "Symbol" already exists, and it is:

    Family: Symbol

  • Pair Kern

    everything else As-Is.

    In addition to saving the bother of looking up key sequences or hex codes more than once per document, doing special characters as Variables also:

    • eliminates the annoyance of subsequent characters being in the alternate font, and
    • eliminates false positive spell check errors

    ______

    Looking less forward to FM9 or 10 every day ...

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