donald,
me again, follow up.
this s/w doesn't work well on my win10 x64 os, always end up not responding, sometimes freeze up everthing open on desktop.
i had to end it via windows task manager, as i cannot close the s/w.

donald

Clairvaux, There are instructions on the G&G website on how to edit.

You misunderstood me. I was complaining that GOTD has neither a preview function nor an edit function for the comments we write here, so we can't correct mistakes.

Clairvaux, Sorry! Yes, I misunderstood. I do agree; a preview function to proof what one has written so necessary corrections can be made would most definitely be an improvement.

Also once you've verified that you're not a "robot" the system should recognize your "Name" as not being a "robot" so that one does not have to continually verify thta one is not a "robot". I understand the need for "Captcha", but it can get quite frustrating after a while.

Dae Powell, It will support four languages at any given time and if you translate a language for them they will give you the program (aml maple) for FREE.

Bruce Fraser,
19$ cost personal license. The link to "Buy Now" of home license.
See here: pricese and licenses on official web site of Aml Maple

Bruce Fraser, 9.50$ is is the not permanent price. This is discount for today deal only.

Bruce Fraser, A little more research on your part would have given you the answer. There are two license types: Personal and Home. A Personal License is good for one computer and is normally $19.00 U.S. @ 50% = $9.50 U.S. A Home License is good for four computers, including your work computer and is normally $29.00 U.S. @ 50% = $14.50 U.S.

izk, if you don't write in different languages and keep switching keyboard layouts, then you don't need this. I do.

I constantly keep switching between German, English and Romanian. English and German have the Y and Z exchanged on the keyboard and instead of brackets you get umlauts (üäö -- actually I switched first to Romanian and got ățș). As you can see, if you could see while typing in which layout you are _without_ moving your focus to the lower-right corner of the screen, where the clock and language indicators are, you could avoid mis-typing things, having to delete and retype.

It's a great invention... just that it still does not work. This is the third incarnation of the program (tested from Version 2 above) and it sort of works, but every now and then:
- the flag symbols are way off. Instead of being next to the cursor, they end up somewhere on the screen. Worse than moving your focus to the lower-right corner is hunting a flag icon over the whole screen
- the cursor does not change the color depending on the language (i.e. layout) as advertised (and as it used to do in some applications in a previous version).
- sometimes you have the flag displayed (somewhere on the screen) and it stays there until you type some special character (as the ones above), moment in which it simply vanishes. You have to change keyboard layouts to get the flag back until you again type a special character. Which, actually, defies the sense of the application.

So a big thanks to both GOTD and the software developer for putting the program at our disposal and a big request at the software developer: test your software with usual applications (like Word/LibreOffice, Chrome/Firefox, Thunderbird) and come back when you have a functional version without the glitches mentioned above. Or focus on something simpler than coding and testing your software.

Regards.

izk, this is most likely for people who work in multiple languages. personally, I think it may be useful for me because many times in the day I'll be using the wrong language in the wrong window and need to delete, change language and re-type.

izk, I haven't downloaded this, but looking at the website I would say is it aimed multilingual PC users, like myself I frequently switch between English and German keyboard layouts, but as Windows already has this function built into it I can't see the point of today's giveaway, to me it looks as if all it does is add a bit of eye candy and doesn't do much more .... Unless I'm missing something.

I agree. There's something embedded in Windows which does just that, it's called the Language Bar (accessible through "Change keyboards or other input methods").

As far as I can tell, the only difference is that the Language Bar does not show next to the cursor, which is a terribly distracting place to put such a thing, anyway. It can be either in the taskbar, or floating.

Anyway, barring maybe the case where vocal recognition is used, this still supposes that you physically switch between keyboards adapted to different languages. The few users who might actually do that (and the Russian developer of this program comes to mind) certainly know which keyboard they are typing on right now : they just have to look at it.

When you do disconnect one a connect the other, obviously you will head straight away to Windows "Change Keyboards" box and adjust your settings accordingly, otherwise you would be typing something and getting something else. So even the need for a permanent, on-screen indication of which keyboard arrangement Windows is set to a the present time is doubtful.

But it's right there in Windows, if you want it. You don't anything else, and you certainly don't need a distracting flag right in the middle of your document.

I'm ready to be contradicted if I've missed something.

izk, if you're using more than one keyboard layout here is a key point from program's description "It's easy to correct text: select incorrect text, press hotkey — receive text in correct keyboard layout. " That is if you typed some text in the wrong layout, other than this i don't know why one should use this software.

izk,
the people like me, learning foreign language;
input foreign language in doc, url; & etc.
some times we may forget to switch the input tool, is hell.
because focing us to re-typing again, is headache.
as some language is like english, using roman words, but in different position only.

i believe, it did help a lot, when u typing or moving the cursor, cutting down lots of problem come along, if this s/w is behaving.
at least, it tells u at this point what is the language's status.
if u are solely on using english, u never know our pain in using computer.

donald

I have a question for all those commenters who type in several languages. You write about using different keyboard layouts. I assume you own several physical keyboards, one per language used, and you disconnect / connect them according to language used. Is that the case ?

Otherwise, I don't see how that program could help. If you press key A and it produces B in your document, knowing that you're supposedly working in language X doesn't help you much. Even worse if you're looking for special character C, which is specific to language X and therefore not to be found anywhere on the physical keyboard of language Y.

Clairvaux,
if you only use any 1 language on your device thoughout each session, then i think this s/w is out.
when anyone is continuous switching between just 2 language input tools to do his work for long hours, it is a different story.
if he can always remember to check the taskbar (at rhs) each time when start typing, same, this s/w is out.
just check through the comments, we are the common people, always forget, esp. in long hours.
the amount of re-typing is depending on when he find out it is at wrong setting.
the frequency of re-typing can make that person mad.

we always hope someone can create a s/w to save us, as it is a pain.

from a victim,
donald

No, personally I have only one keyboard. Its physical layout is german, so QWERTYUIOPÜ* if you press each key on the second row. I touch-type, and I *actually* know the three layouts I use, so once I switch to English I know I have to press Z to get Y and ) to get ( [yes, it's mind-numbing at the beginning but becomes a second nature]. I probably switch layouts a dozen times an hour, so it's impossible to switch physical keyboards so often.

Great talent ! And very specific use...

Jeff, I'm not a user, but my kids have taken foreign languages in high school. For the foreign language they install the Windows keyboard for that language and during that class and homework they switch to that keyboard. The rest of the time they use English. Any time you have a mode that has no indication which setting is active, you are going to forget to swich back. I think this sounds useful to anyone who has more than their native keyboard installed because Windows does not make it obvious which is active. If you never work an a different language, this is obviously not for you.

Jeff, see to article on the web site AddictiveTips (tips for software and computer)

Jeff,
I need this. Anybody who uses two different languages which use different keyboard layouts needs this.
If you type sometimes in Greek and sometimes in English, you sometimes get confused thinking you are typing in one and then suddenly notice you are really typing in the other. This happens even more when you are using two programs in tandem, each one with a different language, say, you are typing a document in English, but constantly checking and replying mail in French, whilst browsing the web in Russian.

Jeff,

After reading what is on the home web page for this product (Homepage link in the blue box above), it would seem that this provides a handy way to switch between keyboard language layouts (key assignments) for multi-lingual users.

So, if you speak/type in one language (say, English-only, like me) then this this is probably of no use to you (which, BTW, is not a good reason to down-vote the product if you are not a user of this category of software).

Hopefully some appropriate multi-lingual user will evaluate this title. Thanks anyway, GOTD -- keep introducing interesting & useful titles -- every now and then I discover a true "keeper"!

Jeff & izk,

Utilities like this are often useful for those who are typing/editing in more than one language. For example, you might be typing an article on a powerboat using side-by-side columns, with one column in English and one in Spanish (and, yes, there is a successful boating magazine that uses this exact approach to presenting their reviews on various boats and small yachts). As you would switch from column to the other, your keyboard layout would change to include different types of punctuation (such as the inverted question mark that starts a sentence in Spanish that is intended to be read as a question), grammatical symbols, and letters.

There are, of course, other types of uses than the one I just mentioned above, such as translators who may be composing in one language (say, for example, the company employing them), while writing the translation in a target language to be distributed elsewhere.

Hope this helps.

BruceM

Jeff, My first impression, after reading the description, was that it would show the keyboard layout of different languages since many countries use different keyboard layouts, such as; Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and any language that uses special characters other than letters. And the special characters used with letters for pronunciation, but that is not the case.

It appears to be a simple word processor capable of writing various languages. So who it is for is anyone who speaks, reads, and writes multiple languages. I know for sure it will write English, Russian, German and I assume, French, Spanish, Italian. Past that I don't know how many languages it supports, for sure.

It also shows you a code for the language you're typing attached to the cursor in the word processor.

JonE, P.S. The word processor will support for different languages at any given time, but no more than four, at a time.

Jeff,

The program seems to be for people who have trouble remembering what language they are using while typing.

Now if it actually changed the characters being typed (for instance changing English to Chinese) on a basically English keyboard it would be doing something. The website mostly shows how easy it is to see what language you are typing in but not how the keyboard is going to produce all the different languages available for use.

Not being familiar with keyboards used in other parts of the world I do see a lot of strange ASCII characters on our English keyboards but to type them (perhaps without using today's program) we have to use the [Alt]+[keyboard key number] to have them appear on the screen. Pictograms are not present on any of my keyboards.

Jeff,
the people like me, learning foreign language;
input foreign language in doc, url; & etc.
some times we may forget to switch the input tool, is hell.
because focing us to re-typing again, is headache.
as some language is like english, using roman words, but in different position only.

i believe, it did help a lot, when u typing or moving the cursor, cutting down lots of problem come along, if this s/w is behaving.
at least, it tells u at this point what is the language's status.
if u are solely on using english, u never know our pain in using computer.

donald