By Graham K. Rogers

With the latest version of OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion, there are some additions to System Preferences and several changes: some large, some small. The Language & Text preferences are almost identical to what was available in 10.7, Lion, but as with a number of preference panels there are differences.

The preference panel for Language & Text controls the way the system uses specified languages for display and input, as well as other settings related to the way the system can be used. It is in four sections: Language, Text, Region and Input Sources.

Language

As from the version 10.7.3 update, in February this year, Thai was added (at the same time as a number of other languages) to the language localizations so menus and many panels use this. A display language can be changed by dragging the required one to the top of the list and restarting the computer.

The language will depend on the country that the Mac was originally sold in. In some countries, the default is US English. A language not shown may need to be added by first clicking on the Edit List button, then checking the box next to the language item, such as Cymraeg, Walon and others. The language can then be dragged to the required place in the list.

The main language panel allows sorting order to be specified by use of a button at bottom right.

Text

Using the + button below the panel allows user-defined shortcuts to be added. I use a number of such shortcuts when writing the pages I put online: for inserting images and for entering page links. With a shortcut I can avoid much tedious and repetitive typing, while avoiding mistakes.

Such a feature from Apple is all very well, but in a perfect world users do not work all day long in Apple-developed applications. None of these shortcuts will work in some of the 3rd party software I use: these commands will only work with applications written in Objective C. Screen shots that I have of the OS X 10.7 installation show that this feature was available last year, but perhaps no one noticed (I didn't).

[My own needs for shortcuts are served by Ytype from Amazing Plum that does work in all the writing applications I use.]

To the right of the panel are other controls for typing. At the top is a checkbox for spelling to be corrected while typing. Spelling corrections may be made automatically by language: selected by a button below. This button also reveals several specific language/dictionary choices in a menu. At the bottom there is a Set Up option. This opens a panel which gives access to a number of other languages. Text here tells us we may add more by copying dictionary files (.aff and .dic) to the Spelling folder in the Library folder.

As languages may break words at the end of a line in different ways a button allows selection from Standard (default) and four specified languages: English (United States, Computer); Finnish; Greek; and Japanese. There is no option to add others, like Thai or Arabic which have specific rules on line-breaks. Standard would be selected in these cases and the language installation would control the breaks.

Like line-breaks, different languages have their own ways to use quotations and two buttons are available to select the user's preference: with double ("") and single ('') speech marks.

Region

If one selects Thai, Thai characters are displayed for the day and month. The year will also display as B.E. I choose Custom, although I do select the default currency as "Thai Baht".

There are three main sections below: Dates, Times and Numbers.

• Dates has a button to the right to allow selection of a calendar. There are 11 to choose from, such as Gregorian, Buddhist, Coptic and Japanese. We may also select the first day of the week in a button below the calendar.

  Customize, the bottom button in the Dates section, allows a total selection/reorganization of the day and date display. The settings chosen are displayed in the main panel in the Dates section.

  
  

  
  

• Times allows the way the hours of the day are displayed to be adjusted. The single, "Customize", button reveals a panel like the Dates customize button. Users may amend the ways in which hours, minutes and seconds appear. Note that the way the region (or GMT relationship) is displayed can be changed here, but changing the region itself is a function of the Date & Time preferences.

• Numbers affects the way decimals and currency are displayed. These may be changed using Customize. Normal separators are the period (.) or comma (,) but we may type in others, such as a dash (-) easily. When a change is made we click OK to accept or Cancel.

At the bottom of the panel are two other selections: currency and measurement units. The currency may either be selected from a list revealed by a button or typed in. The measurement units are a choice between Metric or US.

Input Sources

There are over 140 keyboards to choose from (including several Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese), right down to Welsh. Dvorak keyboards are also available. Adding a keyboard is simply done by checking a box.

Also available is a Keyboard and Character viewer item. When active this also appears in the languages list in the menubar. The keyboard viewer shows what each key (or combination) represents when pressed. The Character viewer brings up a panel with the hundreds of symbols that are available to users (now including Emoji). These may be entered into a text (or file) with a double click on the symbol.

To the right of the panel is the current key combination for fast switching between keyboards. This may be greyed out if it is being used for another function. I use the command key plus the space bar which is usually default for Spotlight searches, but there is a button for access to all Keyboard Shortcuts so that this may be changed to suit the user.

Radio buttons allow the same input source to be used for all documents or for this to be different, depending on the document. If I select the Brazilian keyboard for composing email, then switch to my text editor, the input source reverts to the US keyboard. If I return to the email, the input source goes back to the Brazilian keyboard. This change is not permanent and had to be reselected if I wrote another email.

A search window at the bottom gives quick access to any one (or more) of the keyboard languages. For example, using "af" displays the three Afghan keyboards, or "bu" shows two Bulgarian entries (Burma is shown under Myanmar).

A final checkbox beside the search panel is available to place an icon for the Input menu (selection of keyboards) in the menu bar.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.