Mac OS 9 keyboard layout

By Florian Grammel

1. General
2. Requirements
3. Where are the characters located?
4. Redesigning the keyboard layout
5. Installation
6. Problems?

1. General

This package contains a specialized keyboard layout for transcribing Medieval Nordic texts on a Macintosh computer running a pre-X system (tested on OS 9.2.2). It does not include all characters in the MUFI recommendation, but a selection chosen with regard to frequency in actual manuscripts and consistency of the arrangement. The keyboard has been optimised for the transcribing of primary sources on the facsimile and the diplomatic level (cf. The Menota handbook ch. 3).

The layout is made as similar as possible to the equivalents on other systems, so that scholars transcribing on different platforms should not face too many difficulties.

The keyboard layout on this site has been developed with support from the project Menota TVB. It can be downloaded free of charge at each user's own risk.

2. Requirements

As Mac OS 9 is no longer developed by Apple, this layout is just provided as a "spin-off" of the layouts for OS X. As installation and use of Unicode on OS 9 is rather tricky, we encourage you if possible to try and upgrade to OS X (10.2 or later) to use Unicode.

It is nevertheless possible to use Unicode on OS 9 perfectly well, as long as you are using entities instead of special characters. "MUFI Entities" returns entities for single keystrokes and thus makes coding faster and helps avoiding typos.

Text encoded using entities can easily be converted to Unicode characters and vice versa with the help of a simple conversion utility.

The advantage of using entities is that you can encode in virtually any application and that typological differences are visible (e.g. the difference between the abbreviation "&ed;" and the semicolon). The advantage of using Unicode characters is that you can see the typed text as it is intended to be displayed and that you do not have to remember any entities. That is of great help when the text is going to be proofread.

Note that the files offered here are "work in progress" and any feedback from users would be greatly appreciated. Contact: Florian Grammel.

3. Where are the characters located?

The mapping of the ordinary keys is identical to the standard US layout (note: the British one is the same except having "£" where the US has "$").

There are three exceptions:

1. There are three variants of the Tironean "et" sign: "&et;", "&ET;" (in comb. with SHIFT) and "&etslash;" (in comb. with ALT)
2. The keystroke for "`" will return the the frequently used abbreviation signs "&bar;" and "&barbl;"
3. instead of "\" you will find "&" and vice versa. This is to faciliate the input of these entities which are not directly accessible on the keyboard.

All other special characters are entered by a combination of either ALT, ALT + SHIFT, or CAPS LOCK and an ordinary character, which has some (hopefully obvious) mnemotechnical connection to the special character in question.

3.1 In general

ALT + letter will return the most frequently used variant of the letter:
e.g. ALT + a gives "a" the entity "á"
e.g. ALT + s gives the entity "&slong;"

ALT + digit will return abbreviation marks that resemble the figure:
e.g. ALT + 1 gives the entity "&er;"
e.g. ALT + 4 gives the entity "&rum"

ALT + SHIFT + letter will return a superscript letter

ALT + SHIFT + digit will return less usual variants of the abbreviations.

3.2 In detail

(a) Functional keys

(*) Since the most obvious key has already been used for more frequent characters, another key imediately below has been chosen.

(**) These characters will be placed above or below the preceding character. Thus, to produce "o with ogonek and acute", type ["o"] + [ALT + ","] + [ALT + "/"]. Do not forget that the layout is based on the US keyboard (thus, the slash, "/", is located in the rightmost position in the bottom line of keys).

(***) These characters are so called "dead keys", i.e. they can melt together with the following character to a ligature, e.g. "thorn" plus "s" to the ligature of "thorn and long s". If the single letters are needed, type: thorn, space, s. As there have been problems with some applications, this feature is diabled in "MUFI Entities"

(b) Combinations with SHIFT and CAPS LOCK giving a complete class of characters

(c) Dead keys giving a complete class of characters

Start by entering keystroke combination 1, depress this keystroke, then press keystroke 2. Remember that the layout is based on the US keyboard (thus, the equation sign, "=", is located in the rightmost position in the upmost line of keys, and the minus sign, "-", in the key immediately to the left).

Note that most characters have an enlarged minuscule letter form, but that only a minority has an Insular letter form ("f" is one of them).

(d) Frequently used XML tags

4. Redesigning the keyboard layout

If you are working with texts containing many other characters than those included in our layout, you may modify the layout yourself. For this purpose you can use our definition files (included in the download), which can be turned into proper layouts on Alex Eulenberg's page Unicode Keyboards for Mac OS.

Alex Eulenberg's utility has also been used in the making of the present MUFI keyboard layouts. Many thanks for assistance from Alex Eulenberg with this work.

5. Installation

It is not possible to install keyboard layouts in OS 9, while the system is booted in OS X! To use MUFI Entities in "Classic" mode, you have to install them while the computer is running completely in OS 9.

1. Download the zip archive containing the files needed here. Depending on the browser you use, you might have to unpack the archive manually by double-clicking it.

2. Drop the file "MUFI Entities" into the "System" folder. To do so, you have to quit all running applications first.

3. Open "Keyboard" from the "Control Panels".

4. Tick "MUFI Entities" from the list of available layouts, in addition to your usual layout.

5. Close the "Keyboard" control panel.

6. Select your keyboard layout from the pull-down menu in the main menu line. Note that you can change layouts whenever you want.

It is strongly recommended to have one's usual keyboard installed, too. When you have checked the appropriate check-box in the "Options" of the control panel, you can easily shift from one layout to another by pressing ALT+APPLE+Spacebar.

"MUFI chart.pdf" in the package can be printed for easy reference.

6. Problems?

In general: When the layouts does not work with a particular application: Try another application.

Again: This layout is not thoroughly tested! Please report any problems.

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Created 10 December 2004. Last update 9 June 2005.