ALT + Key combination BUG

[Wlodek]

Hi ,
There is one Bug , in UMS 8 Pro. It is related with non english characters.
I have to use Polish special character so I have to Use "Right ALT+A"
combination to receive needed sign(character).
Described Action Causing that all text filled out before , disappears and only proper Polish sign appears after I choosing "Right ALT+A" .
I tried to use copy/ paste combination from external editor , and it works , but this is not a proffessional recovery for this problem .
I working on XP Pro SP2 Polish version

Is it possible that some shortcuts ( I mean key combination "ALT+key") makes described problem ???

Any Ideas ???

Best Regards
Wlodek

[Devil]

I can sympathise, but is this really a bug? If so, is it of Ulead's or Microsoft's making? I cannot answer. However, the MSP English language version (which I presume you are using) is really meant for use with an English keyboard. I use a number of languages, some of which use the AltGr key, but I do not like swapping between 4 keyboards for different jobs, so I bought a programmable keyboard and have a standard US layout with all the special language-specific letters programmed into the extra keys, so I never use the AltGr key. The only exception is Greek, which does not use the AltGr key, so I can type it directly using the US keyboard (I know which key = which letter!).

[Wlodek]

Dear Mr Devil

I would like to thank you for prompt answer, but I realy expect problem recovery, not a many many not useful words .
In this case I am still waiting for proffesional advice

Best Regards and Merry Christmas Mr Devil

[Ron P.]

Dear Mr Devil

I would like to thank you for prompt answer, but I realy expect problem recovery, not a many many not useful words .
In this case I am still waiting for proffesional advice

Best Regards and Merry Christmas Mr Devil

Dear Mr. Wlodek,

Mr. Devil's advise is considered very professional. He is one of the more knowledgeable users of MSP on this forum. Sure there are others, like Terry Stetler, Snoops, sjj1805. But I don't think you will find them any more (or less) professional and knowledgeable then Devil. I think he did provide an answer, maybe not what you desired. Sometimes we may not like the answers, because they don't immediately fix the problem. If you think that this can be fixed you need to file a report with Ulead, by going to Ulead's website and completing a form.

[Devil]

OK, you don't like my answer. I have now had time to check. What AltGr-A does in some languages is the same as Ctrl-A, it selects all. Obviously, under these circumstances, it will erase at the next keystroke.

I've had a look at a number of non-Ulead graphics proggies and had some bizarre results. For example, if I type AltGr-A in Corel Draw 12, it loses focus on a text box as soon as the AltGr key is pressed, so that some of the other keys have no effect, whereas some others will cause the text box to be refocussed. In an ECAD programme I use, the effect is identical as with MSP (AltGr-A selects all). It would seem that, with those languages that use the AltGr key, this has the same effect as typing Ctrl-Alt (in any language) and Ctrl-Alt-A with an English keyboard will select all in MSP and in my ECAD application.

Quite frankly, I cannot believe that Ulead and other authors would deliberately alter the default keyboard mapping to produce something bizarre, except where a specific keyboard shortcut is written into it. This is not the case with either of the applications where I had Select-All appearing for AltGr-A. I therefore suggest that this mapping is written by default into Windows and should be overridden for specific keyboards. As I said before, I don't know whether to blame MS for this default or Ulead for not remapping for all keyboards. Believe me, this is benign compared with some other non-Latin character effects in the Ulead titler.

As suggested by vidoman (who is also very expert in Ulead products), your only redress is to fill in a bug report form and see what and how Ulead responds. But I doubt whether you will get a patch for it in the near future, so I suggest you may wish to use a workaround in the meanwhile, such as the programmable keyboard I suggested above. I would also suggest you send a bug report to Microsoft.

[Helge]

With Windows XP you can use alternate keyboard settings / layouts. Go to the international tab/keyboard and install there in addition to your local keyboard the us english layout. Most likely its allready on your pc, so you wont need a installation disk. You can define with which key combination to switch between different keyboard layouts, default is alt shift.

To see where the keys are located on the keyboard start the program "on screen keyboard" (comes with xp, located in accessories/accessiblility in the english version). Unfortunatly this program does sometimes not work very well, e.g. might switch to your default keyboard layout when called. Then you have to click a few times with the mouse in it and reapply alt shift till it works and shows the keyboard layout you want. But this is a MS problem.
Also a MS problem is, that the keyboard indicator in the taskbar sometimes shoes a black rectangle instead of the selected language so you have to gues which language you are using at moment. Its unlikely that MS will ever fix this bug because the guys at MS dont work with non english keyboard layouts, so they never test it.

You could also simply try all keys once to detect where the keys are located on the english layout and simply rember the ones you need or write them on your keyboard with a pencil.