3 replies to this topic

[Ploni]

What's the complete solution for typing Hebrew on a Mac? When I need to type Hebrew text I use Mellel (for its Unicode support, and so I can send Hebrew text to others and they can read it). I type text in with the Hebrew Keyboard offered for free by Tyndale house. This keyboard is better and more natural than the other two Hebrew keyboards that come with the Mac: Hebrew and Hebrew QWERTY.

The problem is that when I use Accordance I have to use a different keyboard, the one native to the application that uses the Yehudit font. The problem is that Accordance does not provide a 'keyboard' with Yehudit and so one has to type the characters either by guessing or by having a printed page in front of one that has the Yehudit Hebrew font. There is no keyboard viewer.

I am really looking for a way of typing Hebrew in Accordance and Mellel with a single keyboard, without having to use two different keyboards. I would like possibly to purchase a 'physical' Hebrew/English board to go into my Mac that uses a standard keyboard that will work in Mellel and Accordance. Perhaps someone can help to find a solution to the problem?

Edited by Helen Brown, 08 May 2008 - 02:25 PM.
Name removed at member's request

[Helen Brown]

I am not an expert on physical keyboards, nor on Tyndale's keyboard. I know that we hope to release a Unicode keyboard that matches our Yehudit layout. Two Accordance features may help: the Israeli keyboard option in Preferences: Greek & Hebrew, and the Character Palette (version 7.1) which lets you enter any character in any of our fonts and reminds you of the keystroke.

[Thomas]

Basil,

Perhaps the best solution is to learn the Israeli layout (OS X "Hebrew). The only caveat to this is, that Accordance has the nikudot completely mismapped from that of the OS X keyboard (which is Unicode compliant). Accordance does not recognize Unicode mappings as input—something rather frustrating. Still, the closest they have come to this is to map one the keyboards to the Israeli layout (Preference > Greek Hebrew > "Use Israeli keyboard...").

Learning the layout isn't too tough. There are some tools to facilitate the process while in the Hebrew (Israeli) layout: 1) Open the Keyboard Viewer when typing in Hebrew in Mellel, Mail, TextEdit, etc. (¡Not inside Accordance!); 2) Practice this keyboard at http://www.zigzagwor...KTutor/hthe.htm (slow loading site).

Once you have the keyboard down, then you can try it out in Accordance. NOTE: You have to switch your keyboard input method to English, but the mapping will be Israeli. And again, the vowels & trope will be different.

That's how I've gotten around their non-Unicode interface.

שלום

PS OUTSIDE of Accordance, if you like to make keyboard files, like Tyndale did, you can use Ukelele from SIL (free).

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[Eleuterio]

I personally found a solution for the same problem with Ukelele. It is a very simple (and free) program to create your own keyboard layout. I took Hebrew Qwerty as start point and changed the keys to fit Accordance layout. Now I write both in Accordance and everywhere else with the same Hebrew kbd.

Best wishes.

Eleuterio