[bhalash]

Its also my first post here, heh.

I come from a mostly Linux background, so I'm not adverse to tinkering to set things how I want.

However, I've no idea where to start for what I'm looking for:

I'm in Ireland, however, the keyboard layout-is what I'd consider to be a US layout, even when its set to a UK/Irish setting. I want to change things to a proper UK layout. I'm aware that there are ways and means of changing this manually, but there's been no one page that I've found that covers the methods for this. Would there be an application or HOWTO page for this?

Next up, this likely exsists in some form. Performance tweaking. I want to turn off several eye candy effects within Aqua for performance reasons, such as the drawing of windows that I'm moving. It always makes my iBook chug, so I'd like to turn it off.

And lastly, irc clients-I've irssi installed and I run it through xterm, but I'm seeking something "heavier" for easier multitasking in IRC.

Thank you all

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by bhalash

I'm in Ireland, however, the keyboard layout-is what I'd consider to be a US layout, even when its set to a UK/Irish setting. I want to change things to a proper UK layout. I'm aware that there are ways and means of changing this manually, but there's been no one page that I've found that covers the methods for this. Would there be an application or HOWTO page for this?

It's in System Preferences, in the "Input Menu" tab of the International pane.

[bhalash]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

It's in System Preferences, in the "Input Menu" tab of the International pane.

Forgive me, I must be blind but while I can change layouts there (which is what I've been doing), I see nothing there to customize a given layout.

[TETENAL]

You can not customize it there. You are the first I hear to complain about the UK keyboard layout. What is not correct?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by bhalash

Forgive me, I must be blind but while I can change layouts there (which is what I've been doing), I see nothing there to customize a given layout.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to do.

Unfortunately, the only way I know of to manually alter the keyboard layouts themselves is to find the .rsrc file inside Roman.bundle in /System/Library/Keyboards, copy it to the resource fork of an empty file, fire up the Classic environment, edit the resource fork with ResEdit, and copy it back to the data fork of the .rsrc file...

[bhalash]

Ah, I see, thank you.

[CaptainHaddock]

Colloquy is, I think, the most popular IRC client for OS X. http://colloquy.info

I shouldn't think you'd need to hack your keyboards. If you open International in the system preferences, won't any one of the Irish, Irish Extended, or British keyboards do the trick?

[Thinine]

Originally Posted by bhalash

Next up, this likely exsists in some form. Performance tweaking. I want to turn off several eye candy effects within Aqua for performance reasons, such as the drawing of windows that I'm moving. It always makes my iBook chug, so I'd like to turn it off.

Completely unnecessary. Drawing windows while they're moving is trivial, and so fast in OS X that turning it off would gain you nothing. It's also not possible anyway. Any recent iBook and Tiger (or ever Panther) should be pretty fast in the UI department. Unless you meant resizing, which is also not possible to turn off, but depending on your iBook could be slow. Tiger greatly sped up window resizing, so you would have to upgrade if you really want that one thing to be faster. Other than that, well, don't resize your windows.

[CaptainHaddock]

Originally Posted by Thinine

Completely unnecessary. Drawing windows while they're moving is trivial, and so fast in OS X that turning it off would gain you nothing. It's also not possible anyway.

Yep, window contents are buffered and rendered on the video card, so you would save nothing even if you could turn it off. Heck, you might make things slower.

[Amorya]

The problem, I would imagine, is that in the UK then PC keyboards have the @ sign above single quote, and the double quote above the 2. Apple UK keyboards have this reversed.

Amorya

[viruscool]

I find X-Chat Aqua is a great IRC app. You can get X-Chat for Linux so you may have used it on there, make sure you get the Aqua version as it is fully native.

X-Chat Aqua

[threestain]

Originally Posted by Amorya

The problem, I would imagine, is that in the UK then PC keyboards have the @ sign above single quote, and the double quote above the 2. Apple UK keyboards have this reversed.

Amorya

True, but you just get used to it - its not exactly the most difficult thing in the world to adjust too. The important things are still all there and the only thing that is a bit confusing is having to press alt-3 to get # (hash). Which isn't obvious at all, seeing as its not marked or anything!

[Amorya]

Originally Posted by threestain

True, but you just get used to it - its not exactly the most difficult thing in the world to adjust too.

Definitely - I don't find it a problem. I was just pointing out what he was probably confused about, as various people weren't sure.

Amorya

[Oisín]

I don't know about UK keyboards, but for Danish, there are a lot of keys that are mapped differently on a Mac, with @ just being one of them (it's Alt Gr + 2 on PC keyboards and Alt + apostrophe key on Mac). But, as others have said, it's not really a problem getting used to it, it just takes a week or so. Plus, there are so many more useful characters that are directly available on a Mac than on a PC, such as “” ‘’ «» ‹› ¢ ‰ ≈≠ ≤±≥, etc. On a PC, I'd have to open Character Map, find the one I wanted, copy it, go back into whatever program I was using, and paste it.

[monkeybrain]

Originally Posted by threestain

The important things are still all there and the only thing that is a bit confusing is having to press alt-3 to get # (hash). Which isn't obvious at all, seeing as its not marked or anything!

Brilliant! I'd always wondered how to write a hash on my UK Apple keyboard. ####

[loki74]

Originally Posted by Oisín

On a PC, I'd have to open Character Map, find the one I wanted, copy it, go back into whatever program I was using, and paste it.

I dont know about you, but if it was for rich text, I would also have to format it! ahhh!

I cant contribute anything to the matter of foreign keyboards, but I can second the observation that it is much easier to get to more characters on Mac than it is on PC
åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬…πø¨¥®´∑œ™¢§• ªºª•¶˚¬˜∫≈∂ƒ©∆˙©¨ˆ¬˚∆˚ ˙ƒ©ßßßå∑!!

[Thor]

Originally Posted by viruscool

I find X-Chat Aqua is a great IRC app. You can get X-Chat for Linux so you may have used it on there, make sure you get the Aqua version as it is fully native.

X-Chat Aqua

I second X-Chat Aqua... great IRC client.

I like Colloquy, but you might find it a little "lite-duty" if you're used to a more robust client.

You don't say what you used on Linux, but you can also try BitchX.
Mac OS X binaries are available, but if you're feelin' squirrely, you can try compiling it from source.

http://bitchx.org/

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by loki74

I dont know about you, but if it was for rich text, I would also have to format it! ahhh!

Erhh... Sorry, I don't quite get what you mean by 'rich text'?