Rearrange glyph containers in fontlab 4.6

[empireoflight]

Hi, I'd like to rearrange the containers for the glyphs so they more closely mimic the mac keyboard. E.G., I'd like ~ to be next to !, and so on.
How do I do this?

[Der FontMeister]

the only way I know to do this is to create your own dead keys - such as the ones built in right now...

(example: option-e-e)

Jimmy G.
FontLab Ltd.

[empireoflight]

How do I do that? I'm not sure what dead keys are, or what option-e-e is supposed to do. Thanks for your help.

[Der FontMeister]

A dead key is how you can get some custom extended characters to display. Option-e-e gives you the eacute (e with an acute accent)...

You can edit the KCHR resource in your System in order to make your own combinations...

See: http://developer.apple.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?q=kchr&num=10&site=default_collection

Here's some stuff I found by Googling "dead key" on various sites...

How to make your own keyboard
---------------------------------------

Double-click on the system file in the system folder of OS 9, and copy a keyboard which is close to what you want.

Download ResEdit:

http://www.resexcellence.com/resedit.shtml

Start up ResEdit and open your keyboard file.
Double-click on the KCHR resource.
Double-Click on the line in the dialogue box.

You will see on top left a character chart and on the bottom
a keyboard.  On the right is a list of Tables.  Table 0 is usually
the normal keyboard, Table 1 the Shifted keyboard.

To change a key, press the key on the physical keyboard and drag
the desired character from the chart to the key on the visual keyboard
below.

If you want a key to be a dead key, press the  physical key and go
to the menu KCHR/Convert to Dead Key.  To program the Dead Key's
behavior, click on it with the mouse and a new window comes up
with two columns at the right.  The key pressed following the dead
key is on the left, with the result to be displayed on the right.  Drag
the appropriate characters from the character chart on the left
into the two columns.

Make sure that your return the Table to 0 after working on 1 or any
others.  Do  File/Save.
-----------
open the System file and the KCHR resource within it with ResEdit. Open the keyboard layout you want to add and the KCHR resource within it as another window. Copy and paste the KCHR layout to the System file’s KCHR resource list and save changes. Select the layout from the Keyboard Control Panel. With System 7 and up you can just drag ‘n drop the layout on top of the System Folder.

Jimmy G.

[empireoflight]

Yeesh, sounds complicated. The reason I want to do this is so I can create a paper template with indications of each character on the keyboard, write handwritten letters on the template, and using scanfont, drop them right into fontlab and have them line up with all the correct glyph containers with a minimum of drag-and-dropping.

[Der FontMeister]

 The reason I want to do this is so I can create a paper template with indications of each character on the keyboard, write handwritten letters on the template, and using scanfont, drop them right into fontlab and have them line up with all the correct glyph containers with a minimum of drag-and-dropping.

---well you can create a custom encoding or just copy/paste the characters into "incorrect" slots. Such as placing a "!" character somewhere other than where it usually goes.

I'm guessing this is strictly for your own use?

Jimmy G.