Diacritics and special characters with Connexion

In most cases the Enter Diacritics and Special Characters graphic table accessed through the Connexion toolbar is sufficient for situations where a particular diacritic is not heavily used. With the record to be edited on top: Edit-->Enter Diacritics (or CTRL e) will open the diacritic table window. However, depending on the language, certain diacritics are common enough to make repeated use of the Connexion Diacritics table inefficient and too repetitive for the mouse. In such cases, a keyboard shortcut is preferable.

MacroExpress is not used in Connexion for diacritic/special characters keyboard shortcuts. Instead, Connexion's Keymaps function (Tools-->Keymaps-->Display Commands: Characters) is used. The keymaps table has mapped most but not all diacritic/special characters to default keyboard shortcuts. Since Connexion allows multiple key sequences to generate the same character, most of the heavily used diacritics have been mapped locally to the computer's keypad; for most workstations, the local mapping is available through a custom file. The number pad mapping corresponds to the keypad mapping in Orbis. OCLC's default keyboard mapping has been retained, since both OCLC and Orbis use the standard keyboard mapping for the ALA Character set. Some of the default key sequences do not work in Connexion in either XP or Win7, so alternate sequences have been customized locally.

The table below records the keyboard shortcuts for both the standard Connexion/MARC keyboard shortcuts and the customized keypad shortcuts. The custom number pad assignments are noted accordingly. If the key sequence is not annotated with a keypad number, the unannotated key sequence is the default. If a key has a note: No default key sequence in Connexion or Default key sequence not working on Connexion, the key sequence given will only function if the pre-customized file has been loaded. The local number pad characters are entered at NORMAL. Additional number pad characters by combining the number with an escape key (generally) CTRL.* NUMLOCK must be enabled to enter diacritics mapped to the number pad. Connexion/MARC maps many diacritics to a combination of escape keys with numbers; when a diacritic has a shortcut that includes a number, use the keyboard number key, not the number pad key if the custom file has been loaded.

*The number pad will enter numbers in the search window when that window is on top, even if the custom file has been loaded.

Windows 7 users: Keymaps does not work as seamlessly as it does in XP. In particular, some key sequences mapped to the number pad cannot be overridden by the Connexion keymapping or even by MacroExpress. In such cases, the XP number pad number is combined with an escape key. In the table, key pad numbers/characters with different sequences for XP and Win7 are identified. If only a single key pad number is given, the same sequence can be used for both XP and Win7.

OCLC documentation is in the OCLC Help file under: Default Keystroke for Diacritics and Special Characters, Enter Diacritics and Special Characters Window, and Customize Keyboard Shortcuts.

ARRANGED BY DIACRITIC