There are 9 boxes for your to enter one or more characters that will behave as diacritcal marks (dấu phụ) as shown in red color. For example, the first box contains a quote that represents an acute accent. Although shown as an acute accent mark for the letter á, the acute accent can accompany any Vietnamese vowel.
Note that each edit box can accept from 1 to 4 characters that behave as a single diacritcal mark. For instance, you can specify ' and 1 and s to act as an acute accent. In this case, typing a' or á or as all gives the same letter á.
This group contains 7 boxes, each of which can contain from 1 to 4 letters that behave as the accent mark specific to the corresponding letter shown just above the box.
For instance, the first box shows j, which means j will act like the breve accent for ă. The letter j is so chosen because it is not a Vietnamese character and its shape is indicative of a hook. This same letter can be chosen for ơ and ư as shown below for the typing method called "VIQR - flexible."
The settings shown in the picture above mean:
typing aj → ă, typing AJ → Ă
typing aa → â, typing AA → Â
etc
Thus the letters are basically case-insensitive. However, to minimize chances of forming undesirable characters WinVNkey allows only certain combinations. Click on the "Tuning" button for a list of possible combinations:
Once an accented Vietnamese character has just been formed, one can edit just the accent alone. This capability is available only in Vietnamese and English mode where the typed-in characters are combinable. However, it is not active by default. You have to turn it on by checking the "Editing Accents" box in the "Keyboard Options" dialog.
If this feature is active, you can edit an accent mark with the keys defined in the "Editing Accent Keys" group as follows:
By default, these keys are as follows:
x — Erase (xóa) accent mark of the preceding character.
r — Retrieve the most recent accent mark (rút dấu ra) from the preceding character.
b — Bind an accent mark (bỏ dấu vào) with the preceding character.
\ — Escape an accent mark to prevent it from combining with the preceding character.
You can clear a box if you do not use it. The three letters x, r, b are so chosen because they are not legal Vietnamese letters when following another letter. In addition, they are mnemonic in both Vietnamese and English. What a great coincidence. You can certainly define them using other rarely used symbols.
This key is useful in cases where you want to erase only the accent mark, not the whole character.
Example:
Type: To^i cu?x~ng ga('x.p anh a^'y
Get: Tôi cũng gặp anh ấy
This key is useful in cases where an accent mark is combined by mistake and you want to convert it back to a normal character.
Example:
Type: Anh ddi dda^u?r - To^i ddi cho+i.r
Get: Anh đi đâu? - Tôi đi chơi.
On the first line, ? combined with u by mistake, you then retrieved it by r so that ? became a normal character. Similarly, at the end of the line you pulled out . from ị by another r.
This key is useful in cases where an accent mark does not combine for some reason and you want to force it to combine with the preceding character.
Example:
Type: Ro~ la` la^~rbn tha^~rbx~n qua' ddi tho^i.r
Get: Rõ là lẫn thẫn quá đi thôi.
The three letters x, r, b do not act as editing keys if you have typed intervening characters between the accented character and the editing keys.
The editing keys are themselves not regarded as intervening. To see this in action, try these examples in Vietnamese mode:
Va(?xx^?x~n → Vẫn
Nhu+?x~ng ba^'c<DEL>x.c vi~ nha^n. → Những bấx.c vĩ nhân
In the second example, the DEL key has been used to delete c, This DEL key was intervening between ấ and x, hence x became a normal character.
The default escape character is \ (backslash). This key is special only in Vietnamese, English, and Literal modes. It always behaves normal in Sleep mode. The following discussion applies to Vietnamese, English, and Literal modes only.
The escape character followed by any of the letters V, M, L, S will form a mode-switching command; the command does not appear in the text stream.
The escape character followed by any other character will make that character normal (or stand-alone character). Thus, it can be used
to prevent combination (make accent marks normal text), e.g.
Anh ddi dda^u\? → Anh đi đâu?
Without the backslash, "?" will combine with u to give ủ as a single character.
to prevent x, b, r from behaving as editing keys, e.g.
o'\x → óx
to enter an escape character into text (make an escape character normal text):
- type \\ to get \
- type \\V to get \V
- type \\M to get \M
- type \\S to get \S
- type \\WK! to get \WK! (wake up string)
In English mode the escape character followed by a vowel, or d, or D, will temporarily allow Vietnamese composition to occur.
Example:
Type: Joe's letter to Vi\e^.t has just arrived.
Get: Joe's letter to Việt has just arrived.
Note that in Joe's the characters e and ' did not combine because WinVNkey was in English mode. Combination occurs on request only, such as \e^. in the word Việt
WinVNkey comes with six predefined typing method as shown below. Click on the dropdown combo box to explore various typing methods. The "Viet Chars" page displays the details of the typing method that appears in the combo box. The actual method that affects your typing is not selected here; it is selected on the main WinVNkey control panel instead.
Typically you display a typing method, modify edit boxes, and then save all the settings on the page under a new typing method by clicking on the downward arrow of the "Typing Method" menu button..
Used to save the current typing method under a different name. This is a way to copy a typing method.
Reset the current typing method to the original state that was last saved.
Restore all typing methods to their original states that were last saved. In particular, the first six predefined typing methods are restored to their default state as if WinVNkey were just reinstalled. This is a way to clean up the combining engine. This is very useful for situations where, for some reason, the combining engine is corrupt and gives garbage although you type in correctly.
Delete the current typing method.
First, save the current typing method under a different name using "Typing Method" → "Save As"
Modify the setting to your preference.
Then save the current setting using "Typing Method" → "Save"