I encountered yet another Dvorak bug today. For the benefit of those (ok, probably all of you) who do not know what Dvorak is, it’s an alternative keyboard layout. It’s generally considered faster and more efficient than the standard QWERTY layout.

I can certainly type quite fast and, since the Dvorak keys are not in the same place as the QWERTY keys, I learned to type without ever looking down … it wouldn’t help anyways. Never needing to look down is a plus in my book. Anyhow, it turns out that TextExpander does not support the Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard layout. Dvorak-Qwerty is a Mac OS option (available via the International/Input Menu preference pane) that allows one to type in Dvorak but still access the command shortcut keys in their designated QWERTY positions. That means that I can type in Dvorak, but still use the QWERTY Command-C/V/Q etc. The tech support guy (who responded to my query very quickly, I should add) said that the add this support to the feature request list, although he was not authorized to say if it would or would not be fixed to add this support.

So what’s the bug? When the keyboard setting is DQ (that’s short for Dvorak-Qwerty), TextExpander cannot expand text. You type in the short cut, and your shortcut is replaced by … nothing. You just get an empty string where your expanded text should go. This is frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only Dvorak user out there, though I’m sure I am not. A great feature of the Mac OS is the built in Dvorak support with QWERTY command keys. While Windows supports Dvorak as an option, it does not (and apparently will never) support the QWERTY command function.

Even though I use this alternate layout, I am a slave to Mac keyboard shortcuts (the QWERTY style shortcuts). The Mac OS has long supported this, recognizing the need amongst mac users to have command-C map to the ‘C’ character printed on the physical keyboard, even though it’s not the ‘C’ character in the Dvorak layout is located where the I character is printed. Make sense? Windows does not have this. I was using a freeware program called Hotkeyz on my Windows (work) machine to remap my keys. This solved the PC problem beautifully. But, alas, my IT staff made me take it off because of my workplace ‘no shareware or freeware policy.’ Blah.

Anyhow, most mac programs work fairly well with Dvorak-Qwerty. Except for TextExpander, and except for Adobe CS3 (actually, I don’t believe Adobe products have ever supported Dvorak-Qwerty … and except for Mac MS Office (which I don’t use - iWork handles Dvorak quite well). What this means for me is that I have to turn Qwerty on when using Photoshop, because Command-C otherwise does not work. I could re-learn the shortcuts for the remapped Dvorak keys, but I don’t want to. I like the shortcut keys mapped to what’s printed on the keyboard. Besides, I’m so conditioned to type the Command key shortcuts that it would take major reconditioning to learn the alternate locations. The bottom line for me is this: I know there aren’t many of us out there, but there are people out there that rely on Dvorak-Qwerty. The combo, exclusive to the mac, is one of those little things that makes my mac experience better than my work-a-day PC experience. I can’t imagine it would take much of a code fix to support this feature … it is built in to the OS, after all. So, Adobe and Smile on My Mac … please support the DQ keyboard layout!!

By the way, I found this nice little freeware app that fixes one annoying DQ layout problem - the inability to use command+shift in DQ

I thought I'd share a few photos taken this evening after I returned home from work. Greetings from Hawaii.

(p.s. if you click on the image you'll be taken to my flickr page)

So, I talked my wife into accompanying me to the Ala Moana mall in Honolulu yesterday for the Leopard launch. No, I didn’t actually buy Leopard (see last post - plus, Amazon.com has it for a cheaper price with no tax). I did, however, get a nice Leopard T-shirt (as did my wife), and I picked up a LaCie d2 Quadra 500GB external drive and iLife'08. We only waited for about an hour and a half. Was that worth a free Leopard T-shirt? Yeah, sure. Of course, there are already people selling their shirts on Craigslist and Ebay. Last I checked, they were going for between $30 and $50 … but I’m keeping mine.

And here are a few photos from the opening. It was a lot of fun. There were probably about 200 people in line at the opening bell at 6pm (although I couldn’t actually see the end of the line, so it may have been more) and enough security to manage a sizable rock concert. It was a bit disconcerting as we entered the store. We were about 20 or 30 deep in the line, so as we were part of the first group to enter, we were greeted by a sea of Apple employees clapping and ecstatically cheering for us. Very energetic. Disconcerting. I couldn’t believe how many Apple employees they squeezed into this little store.

I was impressed, though, by the organization of the event. As I walked in, I was asked if I was there to buy Leopard. I said no, but I wanted a hard drive … and my escort pointed to the back of the store and said, ‘John will take care of you.’ Sure enough, there was John at the back of the store, grinning and waving at me to come on down. Now that’s customer service. Three Apple people tried to grab me on the way out to explain how Leopard worked, but I declined. I’ll come back when there’s more room to hang out.