Introduction
Welcome to the second part of using the editors on your new smart braille display! We will be looking at the rest of the features we did not cover in the previous editor article, since they are a bit more advanced. Needless to say, after reading this article, you will be a master at working with text, and replacing text altogether. Let’s begin! This assumes you are familiar with the editors’ interface, since both practically do the same thing.
Selecting Text.
The first thing we’ll cover here is how to select text when typing in a file. To begin the selection process, use the cursor router buttons above your braille cells to find the first character you want to select. In this case, let’s say you wrote, “Hello.” You want to select that word and delete it. So, put your cursor where the letter H is and press “Enter+S (F8)” to begin the selection. Now, locate the end of the word and press the same commands listed to start the selection, but on braille keyboard models, press an “Enter+S Chord.” If you just want to select an entire document, you can press “Enter+Full cell (Control+a)” to highlight everything. From here, you can perform the following commands, apart from pressing “Backspace” to delete text.
- copy: “Backspace+y (Control+C)”
- paste: “Backspace+V (Control+V)”
- cut: “Backspace+X (Control+X)”
Find and Replace
This is pretty straight forward. To begin the finding process, press an “F Chord (Control+F)”. You will be asked to enter the text to find. Once you’re done, press “Enter” and you will be put at the next instance of the document where the text is located. Alternatively, you can navigate through the find window and change if you want it to search forward or backwards through your document. If you are in the document, you can also press an “N Chord (F3)” to search forward, and a “P Chord (Shift+F3”) to search backwards. To replace text, you can press “Backspace+F (Control+H)” to open the find and replace window. On the first edit box, type in the original word to find in your document. Let’s say you want to replace “Hello” with “Hi.” Let’s type in “Hello” in this first box. Navigate to the second “Replacement” edit field and type in “Hi.” From here, we can either navigate to “Replace” or “Replace all. Once you hit “Enter” on one of those, the text will be changed. Be careful if the word you are changing are words like “he/she or her/him,” which could be found in another word, because often that word will get replaced with something you didn’t mean to change. For example, if you were to replace the word “He” with “She,” and the word “Hero” is present in the file, that word would become, “Shero.” So keep this in mind.
Reading A Document
This may sound very obvious to some, but it is definitely possible to read a document. Let’s go to the top of the file by pressing “L Chord (Control+FN+Left Arrow.”) Now, you can either read the document using the thumb keys, or, you can press “Enter+dots 1-2-4-5-6 (Alt+G)” to have the braille display automatically move through the document. To increase the scrolling speed, press “Enter+Dot 6 (Control+Equals Key.”) To slow down the scrolling speed, press “Enter+Dot 3 (Control+Hyphen key.”) To move to the bottom of the document, press “Dots 4-5-6 Chord (Control+FN+Right Arrow.”) If you have the voice activated on your braille keyboard models, press a “G Chord” to begin reading from wherever you are in the document.
Read Mode
With all these commands listed on scrolling, it may be a good idea to activate a mode that won’t let you edit a document accidentally. We do indeed have said mode on these devices! To activate reading mode, press an “X Chord (Control+R.)” This command is a toggle, and it will allow you to read a document without worrying about typing in accidental characters.
Advanced Saving
Now it’s time to show you how to change where files are saved. Let’s start from the document itself. Press “Backspace+S (Control+Shift+S)” to open the save area. From here, to change the folder, navigate to “change Path.” Once you press enter, most likely you will be in a list where all you see is “Select, and Go to parent.” You’re in the “documents” folder, which has no other folders in it. Let’s find “Go to parent” and press “Enter” there. From here, navigate as usual until you find the folder you are looking for. If you want to find this on a drive instead, select “Go to parent,” and locate the drive in question, then find the folder. Once you press “Enter” on the folder itself, now locate “Select Folder.” You will be back in the save window. Locate save, and you’re good to go!
Exporting Braille Files
In the braille editor, you have the ability to translate the files you finished as text files. To do this, find “Export as Text” in the braille editor’s edit menu. It will ask you to select a braille table. Basically, what language do you want? Press “Enter” here, and use your navigation keys or first letter navigation to find your braille table. Press “Enter,” and you are brought back to “Select Braille Table.” Move down to “Okay,” and press “enter.” This will open that save window we JUST discussed. You can now save the file in the usual way.
Editor Settings
While most of the time people do not use these settings, you can customize some small features to your liking, so we will cover these below.
Confirm Delete
This setting controls if you want the braille display to ask you if you are sure you want to delete text when it’s highlighted. If this gets annoying, you can toggle this to “Off.”
Show Editor Text Indicators
Remember those box indicators we discussed in the previous article? This setting is the one that controls if you want those present on the display when working with the document. They can honestly get in the way after a while, so I personally turned this off. But, if you want a little box following you around, you can keep this setting on.
Conclusion
So many advanced editor commands, but we hope you will be able to master these applications! Remember, the commands can all be found in the editors’ context menus by pressing an “M Chord (Control+M.”) Happy editing!