Simple Menu Bar app - How simple?

Discussion in 'Mac Programming' started by hollerz, Feb 23, 2011.

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  1. hollerz, Feb 23, 2011

    hollerz macrumors 6502a

    hollerz

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2006
    Location:
    Durham, UK
    #1
    I use a lot of greek letters for university work, and it's a bit of a pain to keep having to google them and copy and paste. I'd love to write an app that simply has an icon in the menu bar which brings up a list of all the letters, and clicking on one will copy it to the clipboard. I've attached a quick mockup.

    How hard is something like this? I have ZERO experience using C (or really any other programming language, HTML is my limit). I don't mind reading and learning a bit, but I don't have hours to spend on this :D
     

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  2. chown33, Feb 23, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 23, 2011

    chown33 macrumors 604

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2009
    Location:
    Sailing beyond the sunset
    #2
    You can do it with no programming at all.

    Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard tab.
    Click checkbox "Show Keyboard & Character viewer in menu bar".
    Observe flag icon appears in menu bar.

    Click flag icon that appears in menu bar.
    Choose Show Character Viewer **.
    Observe viewer floating window appears.

    Choose the tab "By Category" in viewer window.
    Select Greek from left-hand list.
    Observe Greek characters in right-hand grid.

    Choose Greek character of interest.
    Click "Insert" button at lower left.
    Observe Greek character inserted at insertion point in front app.

    You can iconize the Character viewer to the Dock to hide it.
    Otherwise it will float above all windows.

    I'll let you work out how Favorites works,
    and the other collapsible subviews of the Character viewer window.


    ** If Show Character Viewer isn't present:
    System Preferences Language & Text > Input Sources tab.
    In list, check Keyboard & Character Viewer checkbox.
     
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  3. hollerz, Feb 23, 2011

    hollerz thread starter macrumors 6502a

    hollerz

    Joined:
    Sep 13, 2006
    Location:
    Durham, UK
    #3
    Thanks! I knew about the character viewer, but I thought it was a Pages thing. Didn't know you could use it like that. Will work nicely! :D
     
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