Is ASCII Table now Unicode or how to insert Cyrillic characters?

Is ASCII Table now Unicode or how to insert Cyrillic characters?

221
Basic UserBasic User
221

    Aug 07, 2022#1

    I'm using UE 26.10.0.82, so maybe things have changed in the meantime.

    The ASCII Table is very useful for inserting non-ASCII characters into a document, and it would be perfect for me if it covered all of Unicode, i.e. similar to Windows Character Map, but writing straight to the document rather than copy/paste.

    I am correcting optical character recognized text in the Cyrillic alphabet but I am not proficient in the Windows Russian keyboard, hence my interest in a table-based method. An insertion may consist of a sequence of Cyrillic characters, and there will be constant moving between the document and the character table, so both must stay on-screen and allow the mouse to focus one or the other.

    6,603548
    Grand MasterGrand Master
    6,603548

      Aug 08, 2022#2

      The ASCII Table view is also in UltraEdit for Windows v2022.0.0.102 still an ASCII table. Well, in real it shows the 256 characters encoded using the Windows code page defined by the user according to country/region configured for the user account.

      However, every user can create its own character tables. There are multiple solutions available for a custom character table using tags, templates or macros.

      Tags

      In ribbon mode click on ribbon tab Layout in third group Lists on check box item Tags to open the Tags List view. In toolbar/menu mode with contemporary menus click in menu Layout on menu item Tags to open this view. In toolbar/menu mode with traditional menus click in menu View in submenu Views/lists on menu item Tag list (UE for Windows ≤ 28.20) respectively in submenu Lists on menu item Tag list (UE for Windows ≥ 2022.0).

      There can be seen at top already several groups. The group HTML - Special Characters is a "character table" for inserting characters with their HTML entities into an HTML/XHTML file. Right click into the view and click on context menu item Modify tags to open the Tag List Modify dialog window. There can be created a new group with button New group with a custom name to which custom tags can be added for creating a custom character map. A tag is in this case the single character to insert and a description of user´s choice. (Unicode code point value + character name would be a good description.)

      Double clicking on a tag in the created group selected in the Tags List view inserts the defined character.

      Templates

      Templates are the enhanced version of tags. Templates can be inserted also from within the document window without opening the Template List on having the smart templates feature enabled in configuration as it is by default. The first fifty global templates can be inserted into active file also by pressing the hotkey or chord (multi-key assignment) assigned by the user in the key mapping configuration dialog to the commands User template x with x being a number in range 0 to 49. So on definition of the most often needed characters as global templates it would be very efficient to use chords to insert them like Ctrl+L (literal) or Ctrl+Shift+T (template) as first key and a character specific key for the appropriate template respectively character.

      In ribbon mode click on ribbon tab Layout in third group Lists on check box item Templates to open the Template List view. In toolbar/menu mode with contemporary menus click in menu Layout on menu item Templates to open this view. In toolbar/menu mode with traditional menus click in menu View in submenu Views/lists on menu item Template list (UE for Windows ≤ 28.20) respectively in submenu Lists on menu item Template list (UE for Windows ≥ 2022.0).

      There can be seen most likely a tree with Global with the global templates (none by default) and the name of the currently used layout for templates associated with currently used layout and perhaps also a language template if the active file is syntax highlighting with a language for which also language templates are defined. Language templates are not of interest for a character table. So focus on global or layout templates. Right click into the view and click on context menu item Modify templates to open the Modify Templates dialog window. There is at top the template group selector. Select here Global or the currently used layout.

      Add templates with a name which is good for identifying the character to insert into active file and which can be easily typed on keyboard on having enabled inserting smart templates for auto-completion. The template content is just the single character to insert. The description is of user´s choice. (Unicode code point value + character name would be a good description.)

      Macros

      There can be also created macros to insert a character, one macro per character. All these macros must be saved next in one macro file which is configured to be automatically loaded on startup of UltraEdit. A macro can be executed by the hotkey or chord assigned to the macro or by double clicking on the macro name in the Macro List view.

      In ribbon mode click on ribbon tab Layout in third group Lists on check box item Macros to open the Macro List view. In toolbar/menu mode click in menu Layout on menu item Macros to open this view. In toolbar/menu mode with traditional menus click in menu View in submenu Views/lists on menu item Macro list (UE for Windows ≤ 28.20) respectively in submenu Lists on menu item Macro list (UE for Windows ≥ 2022.0).

      Right click into the view and click on context menu item Modify macro to open the Edit/Create Macro dialog window. The button New macro must be used to create a new macro with name of user´s choice being the string displayed in the Macro List view and a hotkey or chord for execution by key on macro file containing this macro being loaded. The two respectively three macro properties should be all unchecked for a macro just inserting a single character.

      The macro itself consists of just the single character to insert enclosed in " and nothing else, except the character should be inserted different according to file extension. I use macros to insert ÄÖÜäöüß according to file extension and use as hotkeys for these seven macros the appropriate key on German keyboard.

      Auto-complete file

      There can be configured at Advanced - Settings or Configuration - Editor - Word wrap / tab settings an auto-complete file with strings (words or phrases) added to auto-completion window on making use of auto-completion feature. As everything below the list box at top of this configuration dialog window is specific for the file extension(s) defined for currently selected list item (Default is for all other file types), it is possible to use file type respectively file extension specific auto-completion files.

      Well, an auto-completion file is not really helpful for a custom character table. But if the used OCR software does recognize incorrect always the same words or phrases, it could be useful to define these words or phrases in an auto-completion file for faster inserting them using the auto-completion feature and deleting next the incorrect recognized word or phrase.

      A macro would be also a good idea which runs several find and replace all commands on a file to automatically correct often wrong recognized words and phrases.
      Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

      221
      Basic UserBasic User
      221

        Aug 09, 2022#3

        Thank you very much, Mofi.

        It seems that a "Cyrillic pick-list" could indeed be made as you suggest, by editing a copy of the "HTML - Special Characters" tag list.  Perhaps some user of UE has already done so?

        In any case,  the UE developers might consider offering character insertion from a full unicode character table, similar to MS Word's "Insert Symbol".

        For my own problem of inputting Cyrillic letters under UE, I now think that the easiest solution is to use the Windows on-screen keyboard, while switching the system keyboard temporarily to Russian.  (A minor disadvantage is that the normal — English or whatever — keyboard is unavailable until switched back.)

        6,603548
        Grand MasterGrand Master
        6,603548

          Aug 09, 2022#4

          I used the first character table of Wikipedia page about Windows-1251 and its HTML source to create the tag list group Windows-1251.

          Please extract the file TAGLISTU.UET (UTF-16 encoded) from the attached ZIP taglist_windows-1251.zip into the folder %APPDATA%\IDMComp\UltraEdit and overwrite the existing file in this folder with same file name.

          The file TAGLISTU.UET is the default tag list file as installed with UltraEdit for Windows v2022.0.0.102 extended with the group Windows-1251 with the 127 characters of upper half of this code page. (There is no character mapped to the byte with decimal value 152, hexadecimal 98.) The descriptions of the tags (characters) can be customized to whatever you like.

          The file TagList_v2.uet contains also the tag group Windows-1251 with the tag description starting with the Unicode code point value instead of the character.

          Feature requests must be sent to UltraEdit support by email. This is a user to user forum.

          Please note that it is possible to insert any character into a Unicode encoded file by using Alt+numeric keypad and entering the Unicode code point value of the character to insert. For more details see the forum topic: Does UltraEdit support Alt+Num codes to insert a Unicode character?
          taglist_windows-1251.zip (34.81 KiB)   2
          Unicode encoded tag list file of UE v2022.0.0.102 extended by the group Windows-1251
          Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

          221
          Basic UserBasic User
          221

            Aug 09, 2022#5

            Thank you again.

            >> A tag is in this case the single character to insert and a description of user´s choice. (Unicode code point value + character name would be a good description.) <<

            What controls the order in which the list is displayed?  I'd prefer codepoint order.
            Or can the lines be left unsorted, ie. displayed in their order in the file?
            Can a line of the file be commented out?

            Meanwhile, I've submitted a feature request for character insertion from a full unicode character table, similar to MS Word's "Insert Symbol".

            6,603548
            Grand MasterGrand Master
            6,603548

              Aug 10, 2022#6

              The tags of selected tag list group are displayed alphabetically sorted. The description can be defined to get the tags displayed in the wanted order like starting with the Unicode code point value.

              I updated the ZIP archive file in my previous post. It contains an updated TAGLISTU.UET as there was a mistake in first version - started tag numbering with 1 instead of 0. There is included now the second file TagList_v2.uet with tag group Windows-1251 with the description changed using a regular expression replace on the tags of this group.

              A comment syntax does not exist for the tag list file. The tags (characters in this case) not needed can be simply deleted from the group using the Modify Templates dialog window or the description is modified to get them displayed at bottom of the list.

              It is possible to add to section [Settings] in the INI file displayed at Advanced - Settings or Configuration - Application layout - Advanced the entry Show Tag Descriptions=0 to disable showing the tags descriptions in the Tag List view and getting displayed only the tags itself. UltraEdit must be restarted after adding this entry to the INI file to be applied.

              Another possibility for your specific purpose would be creating a text file with the Cyrillic characters in whatever order and layout you like and have this text file opened at the same time as the text file to edit. The document window of the text file with the Cyrillic characters is arranged side-by-side or above/below the document window of the text file to edit as described by the power tip Vertical & Horizontal Split Window. That makes it possible to select a character currently needed in file with the Cyrillic characters and copy/paste the character into the file to edit.
              Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

              221
              Basic UserBasic User
              221

                Aug 11, 2022#7

                I think, I've got the Windows-1251 tag list optimized for my own purposes now, having contrived to remove the following groups of characters to the end (reading from the end):
                • Cyrillic characters not used in modern Russian (28)
                • special characters that I don't need (8)
                • special characters already available on the standard Windows English keyboard (3)
                • other special characters already available on my customized Windows English keyboard (12)
                This just leaves at the beginning of the list (reading from the start):
                • Cyrillic characters used in modern Russian (67)
                • some special characters which I occasionally need and for which I have been using Alt+code point (9)
                Many thanks for all your help.