Tips and Techniques

Create a user-defined layout
Choose a convenient set of hot keys
Start 3-D Keyboard automatically
Start 3-D Keyboard as an icon
Other convenient startup preferences
Icon tips not covered elsewhere
Try Either Alt if you're a touch typist

Create a user-defined layout

You may find it convenient to create a keyboard layout that consists of your normal keyboard plus all the special characters you use. The "User-defined" keyboard layout is ideal for this purpose. When you first install 3-D Keyboard, the "U.S." and "User-defined" layouts are identical. You can add all the special characters and dead-keys you like to sensible positions on the "User-defined" layout, creating the perfect layout for your needs.

Choose a convenient set of hot keys

When you first install 3-D Keyboard, no hot keys are enabled. Once you know which keyboard layouts are useful to you, it's a good idea to assign hot keys for them. You may prefer to assign the same hot key to all the useful layouts; that way, you can just keep pressing it until the desired layout becomes active. Another approach is to assign different but mnemonic hot keys for the various layouts (e.g. Ctrl+G for "German" etc.).

Start 3-D Keyboard automatically

If you use 3-D Keyboard regularly, you may want it to run automatically every time Windows is started. This is easy to accomplish; simply choose "Startup preferences" from the program's Options menu, place a checkmark beside "Auto-load 3-D Keyboard when Windows starts," and click OK.

Start 3-D Keyboard as an icon

If you usually keep the 3-D Keyboard window shrunk to an icon when it is running, then you might want to just start it that way. To do so, choose "Startup preferences..." from the Options menu of 3-D Keyboard, and click the box labeled "Always start minimized."

Other convenient startup preferences

Once you know which keyboard layout you use the most, you should set it to be initially active whenever 3-D Keyboard starts. You may also want to select an initial window position.

These settings can all be specified by choosing the "Startup preferences..." item on the Options menu.

Icon tips not covered elsewhere

When you minimize 3-D Keyboard to an icon, it places its icon in the System tray (the recessed portion of the Taskbar, near the clock).

Changing keyboard layouts. If you click on the 3-D Keyboard icon, a menu will pop up which lets you change keyboard layouts or exit the program.
Restoring the keyboard diagram. To restore the larger keyboard diagram, simply double-click the program's icon.

Try Either Alt if you're a touch typist

If you're a touch typist, you should really try using the Either Alt option for typing Third symbols. When typing Third symbols, this lets you use Left Alt with keys in the right half of your keyboard, and Right Alt with keys in the left half of your keyboard.

Note that Either Alt is only available on Windows NT, 2000, and XP.

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