One of the most important and first problems that every user faces when switching from PC to Mac is the Russian layout in OS X, which often causes confusion with its specific location and the way of opening certain letters and symbols.
There are three Russian layouts in OS X: "Russian", "Russian-PC" and "Russian-phonetic". The extreme option can be discarded immediately due to the complete mismatch of virtual symbols and physical keys. In the "Russian" layout, all the keys coincide with the physical keys, but the main problem is that the comma and period are typed by an extremely inconvenient combination of keys " ⇧Shift + 6 " and " ⇧Shift + 7 ". Another thing is the "Russian-PC" layout, in which a period is set by pressing a button to the left of the right shift, and a comma is a combination of both. But in this case, the entire top row of hot keys, pressed by the combination “⇧Shift+ ", Which simply ceases to match the image on the physical buttons. And the letter "e" is no longer a separate key, but a combination of a long hold on "e" followed by pressing one. The suffering will last forever, until Ukelele and direct user hands, who want to get comfort when typing on the Russian keyboard, get down to business.
Ukelele
Ukelele is free software distributed outside the Mac App Store. The only drawback is the lack of Russian localization.
With the help of the utility, we will create a symbiosis of "Russian" and "Russian-PC" layouts, in which the hotkeys of the number row and all other letters will be in place, and a comma with a period is put in a simple and convenient combination.
Download the Ukelele.dmg image from the official site.
Download the program and install it.
How to create the perfect Russian language layout?
After starting the program, an empty virtual keyboard will appear in front of us. Don't be scared, you won't have to fill in everything manually. First you need to select an existing template. For our case, the "Russian" layout is ideal.
Switch to it, and then in Ukelele click File -> New From Current Input Source.
Since the slash " / " (not to be confused with the backslash " \ ") is practically not used in the Russian keyboard, assign a period instead, for which:
1. Double-click the left mouse button on the " / " button.
2. Enter the dot symbol and press OK.
Assign a comma to the same button, but it will be launched by the " ⇧Shift + " combination:
1. Hold down the ⇧Shift key and double-click the left mouse button on the “?"
2. Enter the comma character and press OK.
At the moment, we have got an almost perfect Russian layout, but without the symbols " / " and " ? ". We put them instead of the combination " Shift + 6 " and " ⇧Shift + 7 " (because the period and comma are already used for us, and these keys are already free. By the way, the seven is perfectly associated with the question mark), by analogy mentioned above.
It remains to save the resulting layout and integrate into OS X:
1. Click File -> Save As Bundle …
2. Enter an arbitrary name, for example "Russian-PRO" -> FileDialogSave and save to any directory.
3. Move the resulting file to:
- username / Libraries / Keyboard Layouts so that the layout works only for you;
- / Library / Keyboard Layout to make the layout work for all users on this Mac.
To activate a new layout you need to:
1. Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources.
2. Add a new layout by pressing " + " -> Russian (the new layout will not have a checkbox icon. Instead, there will be a keyboard icon) -> Add.
PS:
1. The operating system will likely change the name of the new layout slightly.
2. In order for the new layout to work in all active programs, you must restart them.
3. The layout file is an ordinary XML file that can be opened in any text editor (thus, you can correct the layout without Ukelele).
The system described above is just an example and a brief overview of the capabilities of the great Ukelele tool. You can also create the perfect layout of your choice.
See also:
- DCommander for Mac - Total Commander in the OS X world.
- Hocus Focus for Mac - Automatically hide inactive windows on Mac OS X.
- OmniFocus 2 is the best task manager for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
- Forgot password from Mac. How to recover. Instruction.
