I have only a limited set of special characters and symbols that I like to insert over and over, so for me Popchar and the Character picker of macOS are overkill and not very handy.
I tried to create a palette that currently contains a starter set of my frequently used special characters and symbols:
This approach has the following disadvantages:
I cannot pop it up via a keyboard shortcut.
The palette stays visible after insertion of a char.
An X (the 'trigger point') stays visible, and is 'very ugly' (at least in my eyes):
Can I solve these 'problems' at all, using the palette approach? Or should I go another way?
Would using Voice Control work for you. You could past your characters into Voice Command and by voice call up the special character that you want. Also using Voivce Control you could also just paste in the Macro URL for each special character snippet you have in KM.
I've been further investigating this topic and I have discovered the action 'Conceal/Reveal Macro Palettes'. I have created a macro to 'enable the macro group' that contains the palette items (the special characters to insert):
So far, so good. Now I can pop up the palette with a keyboard shortcut, which is nice.
Last task to solve: hide the palette automatically once I click on one of the special characters. As we say in Holland: "I cannot make any chocolate" of the options here:
So true. I went completely the wrong way. No need to use the Conceal/Show Macro Palette action at all. Just choose the correct option 'Shows a palette for one action when:'
If you generally want more shortcuts than mouse clicks, you can do that with your special characters too. For example, one quarter = 1, and three quarters = 3, or whatever you want. So you open the palette with your shortcut, type 1 and a quarter is returned, and the palette disappears again. At some point you know the shortcuts by heart, so that you don't even notice the palette anymore. Your palette could then look like this.
Yes, thank you @Frankb. Since I plan to add all superscripts and subscripts from 0-9, I'll try to map the superscripts 0-9 to the numbers 0-9 above the Qwerty keys on the keyboard.
Is there a way to hide the keyboard shortcuts from the palette? I thought there was, but I cannot find it anymore. Reason: I only want to display ², ³ etc.
Note that you have activated "Shrink" in your palette. This means that the palette is only visible as a "symbol". The palette opens only when the mouse is over it If you want that, good, otherwise deactivate this function.
Not helpful for your problem. But as a side note, you can change the icon of a macro. In the editor right side panel, double click the image in front of macro name.
If you generally want more shortcuts than mouse clicks, you can do that with your special characters too. For example, one quarter = 1, and three quarters = 3, or whatever you want. So you open the palette with your shortcut, type 1 and a quarter is returned, and the palette disappears again. At some point you know the shortcuts by heart, so that you don't even notice the palette anymore. Your palette could then look like this.
