KeyShow

The KeyShow program shows the current keyboard type layout on your Amiga. Opening the KeyShow icon displays the keyboard layout as selected in the Input Preferences editor. The default American keyboard layout is illustrated in Figure 10-3.

Figure 10-3.

Default KeyShow Window

The initial display shows the characters that appear when a single key is pressed. For example, the Q key shows a lower case q. However, when you press a qualifier key with a character key, you can get different output. For KeyShow the acceptable qualifier keys are Ctrl, Shift and both Alt keys.

To see the characters that are output when a qualifier key is pressed simultaneously with a character key:

1. Select any of the qualifier keys that appear in the KeyShow window. That qualifier key is highlighted.
2. The KeyShow display changes to indicate the output that you get if you press the selected qualifier key along with a character key. You can select any combination of qualifiers and the display changes accordingly.
3. Select the qualifier key again to return it to its unpressed state.

Keyboard shortcut: Instead of pointing to the qualifier key in the display, you can press the corresponding key on the keyboard. The following list is a guide to interpreting the KeyShow display:

• Qualifier keys not currently pressed are shown in the Workbench background color (normally grey). For example, when you first open the KeyShow window, Ctrl, Shift, and Alt appear in grey. This is because KeyShow is not using those keys in the initial display.
• Dead keys are shown in the Workbench highlight color (normally blue). A dead key is one that, in combination with an Alt key, modifies the output of the key pressed immediately afterward. For example, on the USA keyboard, the Alt+G combination is a dead key representing the grave accent. If you press Alt+G, then press E, you superimpose the accent symbol over the e (è).
• Bold-italics indicate that a key can be used in conjunction with a dead key. In the previous example, E can be modified by a dead key. However, not all bold-italic keys are affected by all dead keys. For example, n responds only to the Alt+J dead key. The final character must exist in the Amiga character set to be available through a dead key.
• $$ indicates that it takes more than one character to define the key.
• If a character is preceded by a tilde (~) or a caret (^), it is a control character.
• Blank keys are undefined for the currently selected qualifiers.