A longshot but

By Lee, 23 February, 2023

Forum
Braille on Apple Products

Hi guys, have a question and I think I know the answer but thought I'd ask. I've recently got a focus 14 display which is working well. The issue is that only having 14 cells doesn't leave a lot of room for things that you could do without. E.G status cells etc. I've got rid of a lot of the stuff I don't need but the thing I don't think you can get rid of and that is annoying is capital letter symbols. It is rediculous that an entire cell is taken up by 1 dot before the start of a word or even worse if the whole word is in capitals it uses up two cells. There doesn't seem to be a way of stopping the braille display from showing capitalisation. Even trying 6 dot and 8 dot doesn't change this nor does contracted or uncontracted braille. So, if this cannot be turned off is there anyway of at least getting the display to put the dot under the first letter of the word and not the cell before? Suspect this is a longshot but anyway any help appreciated.

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Comments

By Dennis Westphal on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 01:23

I did not try it but maybe if you switch to another braille table away from the system defaults to liblouis that could do the trick. That may be worth exploring.

By Bingo Little on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 01:23

Further to Dennis's comment I think you should be able to do this if you switch to UK braille. If there's an option for it, choose pre-2004 rather than post-2004 in which year I believe capitalisation became the norm. UEB is routinely capitalised, I believe, as the whole point of it is to emulate print so far as is possible.

Those days of growing up with uncapitalised braille seem so long ago now. I remember in the old days setting my MPower to suppress capital signs (that's what the menu option called it). PacMate also allowed you to do that, I discovered, during my brief and not terribly satisfactory ownership of one. When capitalisation became compulsory over here and we started routinely seeing it on bank statements and what have you I remember its being a right old pain in the what's-it to get used to but now it's just second nature.

I realise the foregoing paragraph of nostalgic rambling is totally beside the point in your case, your point being that a capital sign takes up 7% of your display. I can understand why that must be annoying. I personally think 20 cells is the irreduceable minimum. My ideal would be if they could get 40 cells into something the size of a 20-cell display, but that's just silly.

By Bingo Little on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 01:23

How could I forget that wonderful Keynote Gold way of asking you things? 'Braille capitalisation? currently no.' that's what it used to say. Main menu. For the options menu, press space with O, anywhere.

By Lee on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 01:23

Yep It isn't that they are there as stated something we have all got used to it is just the space factor. I remember the Pacmate as well which was awful. Shall have a hunt for pre 2004 tables if they exist and hopefully that maybe a good idea.

By Lee on Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 01:23

Ok had a look and as far as I can tell there is no obvious way to get old tables. So this is a non-starter. Suspect I'm stuck with this.