Israeli Keyboard

[Adelphos]

When I press Ctrl-H in the BW notes/editor, it doesn't allow me to type Hebrew with the Israeli Keyboard, even though that is the option I have set, i.e., I have the option flag checked for the Israeli Keyboard. Instead, it types in the BW default Hebrew Keyboard when I am in the BW notes/editor.

It works fine on the CL, but not the notes/editor.

Is it supposed to be that way?

[Mark Eddy]

When in doubt, look in "Help". Here are two pertinent sections:
Chapter 50:
" Use Israeli keyboard on command line
This flag will tell BibleWorks to use the Israeli Keyboard for Hebrew input. This will be in effect only when vowel point sensitive searching is turned OFF. For vowel point sensitive searching you must use the normal BibleWorks keyboard layout. Because the Israeli keyboard does not distinguish Shin and Sin, the "a" key has Shin and the "q" key has Sin"

Chapter 56
"the second is an Israeli keyboard provided by SBL. To install either keyboard just double click on the filename. Note that these keyboard are only useable in application that support Unicode (like the BibleWorks editor and Word 2003). The keyboards can only be installed under Windows XP."
So, the Israeli keyboard should work in the BibleWorks editor, unless it is true that it still works only in XP (and not Vista or 7).
Does this give you any clues?
Mark Eddy

[Adelphos]

Thanks, Mark.

I confess, I never thought of looking help on this one, even though that is what I generally tell everyone else to try first.

And in that vein, from the quote portion that you provided, it appears that the Israeli keyboard should work in the BW notes/editor, but it doesn't for me, not if I press Ctrl-H to type Hebrew there.

Does it work for you? Or anyone else?

[Michael Hanel]

Thanks, Mark.

I confess, I never thought of looking help on this one, even though that is what I generally tell everyone else to try first.

And in that vein, from the quote portion that you provided, it appears that the Israeli keyboard should work in the BW notes/editor, but it doesn't for me, not if I press Ctrl-H to type Hebrew there.

Does it work for you? Or anyone else?

It's my understanding that the help section says the Israeli keyboard toggle is specifically for the *command line*. So I think it can be used in the editor, but to do that you'd have to change your Windows keyboard (the left alt-shift combo), rather than the control-h toggle, which is only for the command line.

[Adelphos]

Ah, you are correct, Michael. I misread Mark's last paragraph by mistaking his own last comment for part of the help file, which I still had not consulted.

So now I see the way to do it.

[Adelphos]

Maybe this will help someone...

I have found that when I paste the WTT from the Browse window into my notes that my keyboard automatically reverts to the Israeli keyboard, which means if I want to now type something I'm all set for the Israeli keyboard. I have my "Copy To Clipboard" options set to Unicode, and of course I have the Israeli keyboard enabled in the option flags.

I usually type all my Hebrew in Davka and then paste it over into the notes, but when you want to just add a word or two to your notes, and if you want to use the Israeli keyboard in your notes, if you paste a single word into the notes from the Browse window you can now automatically type with the Israeli keyboard. Same is true if you paste directly from Davka, of course.

I am as familiar with the Israeli keyboard as I am with the English keyboard, so I never have to hunt for keys with the Israeli keyboard, including vowels when I type a pointed text, which I sometimes do, but the BW keyboard I have never learned.

I said that to say this... I think BW should keep the BW keyboard only as a backward compatible option and make the Israeli keyboard the default in the future, as the Israeli keyboard is really the standard for typing Hebrew.

I love the BW Greek keyboard, probably because I learned it and became comfortable with it, but I do think BW ought to move towards standardized keyboards whenever possible.

Just another round of my two cents.

[Mark Eddy]

I have never been able to figure out how to type pointed Hebrew with the Hebrew keyboard. I assume that all Unicode fonts use the same keystrokes with the Israeli keyboard. So I typed out the entire keyboard (lower case and upper case), and I don't see any vowel points at all. So whenever I want to use pointed Hebrew, I have to revert to BWhebb, which makes more sense to me anyway, since the letters are placed similarly to their English equivalents. I happen to like the look of bwhebb font better than any of the others, but I guess I'll have to get used to Unicode, if everyone else is going with it.
Mark Eddy

[Adelphos]

With the Israeli keyboard there is a variation of that does not, as far as I know, pass over to non-Hebrew programs, i.e., you use the Ctrl keys with the number keys to produce the vowels, and it is very logically layed out. With Davka, you can set it so that you don't have to use the Ctrl key, iow, you can set it to behave either way. I have it set so that all I have to do to type a sere, for example, is press the 5 key. And so on.

But I have never seen a non-Hebrew program that allows you to type vowels with the Israeli keyboard.

Of course, the reason the BW keyboard makes sense to some is because the Hebrew letters are correlated to their English equivalents where possible, but I think that the Israeli keyboard is much more logical in straight Hebrew, but maybe that's just because I'm so used to it.

Ultimately, though, I think there really needs to be a standardization with regard to font issues and keyboards.

Right now, thankfully, Davka is so adaptable with regard to its ability to transfer Hebrew and back and forth between programs that I don't have any problems whatsoever.

My issue with Davka is, and has always been, their patent refusal to make at least some of their fonts available for public use, in the same manner BW does. They can't seem to comprehend how negative this is, not merely for users, but for their own publicity as well.

And I think many of the Davka fonts are simply superior to any other fonts out there.

[Andrew Fincke]

I reinstalled BW7 after the results from an ASE search weren't registering in the Results pane. Now I have version 7.0.012g. I need version 7.0.015y to get the option flag for the Israeli keyboard. By the way, the keyboard isn't perfect. When you have to edit a word you entered in the command line, often it only works with the nonIsraeli keystrokes.
Fincke

[benelchi]

When I press Ctrl-H in the BW notes/editor, it doesn't allow me to type Hebrew with the Israeli Keyboard, even though that is the option I have set, i.e., I have the option flag checked for the Israeli Keyboard. Instead, it types in the BW default Hebrew Keyboard when I am in the BW notes/editor.

It works fine on the CL, but not the notes/editor.

Is it supposed to be that way?

As has already been mentioned, the Hebrew keyboard needs to be selected from windows and not with the Ctl-H; the note windows uses Microsoft's editor and the command line uses Bibleworks internal processing. The Hebrew keyboard actually works well in the Note's window, but doesn't work nearly as well in the command line. In the command line, special searches are impossible i.e. typing @* with the Israeli keyboard does not work and the sin/shin is different. I end up using the graphical search engine quite a bit when doing Hebrew searches because many of the searches are impossible to enter from the command line when the Israeli keyboard is selected.

The keyboard does work better in bibleworks 9 then it did in Bibleworks 8; in Bibleworks 8 the Israeli keyboard would cause gibberish to be entered into the command line unless CAPS lock is on (backwards of what would be expected with the Israeli keyboard that is supposed to type Latin CAPS when the CAPS lock is on). In bibleworks 9 the CAPS lock is ignored and Hebrew characters are typed regardless of the CAPS state in the command line; in the notes window the CAPS works as expected in both Bibleworks 8 and 9.