NEW TO ECLIPSE (and hating it!)

[Marla Sharp]

If anyone can help me on the bazillion questions I have, I'd sure appreciate it.

Firstly, I like my text big on the screen. I figured out to go to user settings, display, editing font. But now I'm having an issue with half of it being hidden by the steno window. So I found out how to get rid of that (ctrl shift F5). But it's still pretty far to the right of the screen. Why does it show so much blankness on the left of the screen? I've uploaded a screen shot to anyone who cares to be a generous soul and help me out with this.

I've got lots more questions, people, so watch out!

[Marla Sharp]

Okay, Ms. Naola, now I gotta have the "b" key defined as backspace. That's smart. But I haven't a clue how to do that. I have only just started on Eclipse and don't know how to define keys or do macros yet. I created tons of them in StenoCAT and had everything just how I wanted it.

When I'm hitting the z key for undo, it's usually after I've left the line. So I can't hit z? I gotta just arrow or go back up and replace the punctuation? Z in StenoCAT undoes pretty much anything you've just done, and it'll take your cursor right back to the spot.

In Eclipse, I've found z will undo the punctuation AND the space, joining two words that shouldn't be joined. So then I have to shift J myself over to the spot, create a space, then hit the correct punctuation.

Any suggestions?

[Naola "Sam" Vaughn]

I assuming you're using few, if any, hyperkeys. The "b" I talked about was a hyperkey. If you email me at [e-mail], I will send you my hyperkeys. You can import them and use them without having to redefine a bunch. I personally find the default hyperkeys don't make a lot of sense for what it is we actually do while editing. You can always change what you don't like or import the defaults back if you don't like mine. I use mine to train with all the time, and you can print them out on paper to refer to.

Hitting the z key does work, but you have to hit it twice to undo the space between the words. Sometimes, but not all the time it will undo a previous change as well - don't know why. I usually just scroll up and hit the backspace key I guess, but I don't too often take out punctuation I put in, either. Don't know what else to tell you.

If you're using the arrow keys instead of j, k, i, and l to move you REALLY need to work on learning the hyperkeys.

You might go to ASI's website and ask over there about the z. There's lots of Eclipse "big wigs" over there who know a lot more than me.

[Brenda Rogers]

Hating Eclipse!?!?! That's like a knife to the heart! I was going to suggest the same thing Jenny did.

If you're not a member of CRF, you should become one. Keith Vincent is over there. Keith is my hero. He can do anything! (Except overlook a collection of 80 pairs of shoes . . .)

He's the Eclipse sysop over there and answers questions, helps with macros, untangles knotty problems. It's a wonderful resource.

[Cathryn Bauer]

What I would recommend is working through all of the Visualizers that Eclipse offers. Just go from top to bottom, doing one or two nearly every working day. You will be amazed how much this minimal effort teaches you.

[Marla Sharp]

Surprisingly, I've gotten almost all the way through the visualizers. They are very helpful.

But when I freeze, not remembering how to do something, I'll look up something in help like "rewind" for how to rewind the audio, and I can't find anything. I just hit brick walls, and it's driving me crazy.

Thanks for all of your help, though. It's nice to know there are kind souls out there who take pity on people like me and offer their help.

[Kyung]

You know, I always call Total Eclipse support. Remember, you're paying $600/yr. For that amount of money, I feel okay w/calling them up w/anything, even petty issues.

For instance, Alt+3 will put the you know in the sentence with the commas around it so it looks like this.

I didn't, you know, think about it.

Well, when I updated, it wonked out my you know. It was driving me nuts because now it would do this.

I didn't ,you know, think about it.

So I called up Eclipse support and had them walk me through it. Of course, if you don't want to call them up for every little thing, just make a list, then hit them all at once with stuff.

[Marla Sharp]

Now I need help defining my dollar sign. I don't use the number conversion feature in Eclipse. I write numbers how I want them to look. So I need to define my stroke for the dollar sign to add a $ before the numbers I've just written. Any idea how that definition needs to look? It converted from StenoCAT as %DOLLARSIGN, or something like that, which isn't right.

I"ve searched the help topics and haven't found anything, so I'd sure appreciate some help.

Thanks, guys!

[Brenda Rogers]

${^}
I don't use number conversion either. I've written them the way I want them to come out for too long. I even tried it, but couldn't get used to it. So I do numbers probably the way you do (tho I don't use the number bar -- don't know if you do). If you have any questions, just give me a holler.

[Marla Sharp]

Brenda, I need to know how to define my dollar sign stroke to place the dollar sign before the numbers. How do you have your stroke defined?

[Brenda Rogers]

I'm sorry. I put it in the last answer, but it probably got lost.

${^}

It's that simple; just the sign and delete space.

[Marla Sharp]

I tried that, and it puts the dollar sign right where you type it. I need the dollar sign to go to the beginning of the numbers. Example:

THEY SAY: "It's three hundred and six dollars."
I WRITE: EUTS/306/DZ
IT SHOULD COME OUT: "It's $306."

Can anyone help me??!! Ooh, it's so frustrating.

[Brenda Rogers]

ohhh . . . I put the dollar sign at the beginning of the numbers as I write. I don't know that you can kick it back unless you use number conversion. I've never found a way of doing it anyway.