Fixing text typed in the wrong layout

Type a word with the wrong layout on and you get characters nobody can read. With automatic fixing on, Langouste notices this as you finish the word, deletes it, types it again in the right layout and switches the layout for you.

It is made for people who type in two different scripts, here the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets, where the wrong layout gives unreadable characters. Layouts that share most of their letters rarely need it, but the group shortcuts and the plate still save time there. Fixing text is free.

What it does

With the English layout on, type ghbdsn and a space: it becomes привіт and the Ukrainian layout is selected. The other way round, руддщ typed with the Ukrainian layout on becomes hello.

The fix happens when you end the word with Space, Tab or Return, or type !, ? or a closing bracket. Langouste reads the word as typed on the other layouts of your cycle group and acts only when it judges the word to be in the wrong layout.

The keys above are those of the U.S. and Ukrainian – PC layouts. On the other Ukrainian layout macOS offers, the letters и and і trade places (there привіт is ghsdbn); Langouste works the same with either.

Taking a fix back

Say you type wfh and a space, and Langouste turns it into цар.

• Backspace right after the fix takes it back: you get wfh again, in the layout you were using. Nothing is learned, because one typo is not a rule, so another space converts the word again.
• Shift+Backspace takes it back and adds wfh to your exceptions. Langouste leaves it alone from then on.
• The Convert hotkey pressed right after the fix does the same as Shift+Backspace.

This works before you type anything else, and only for a fix made at a space or a mark. A fix made at Return or Tab cannot be taken back with Backspace: select the text and use the Convert hotkey instead. All the shortcuts are collected in Shortcuts at a glance.

When it stays out of the way

Langouste leaves alone words with digits, addresses, e-mail addresses and paths, camelCase words, abbreviations of up to four capital letters, words shorter than the minimum (three letters at first) and every word in your exceptions. Settings has a sensitivity from cautious to eager and a minimum length to tune this.

The awkward case is a Ukrainian word that ends in б, ю, ж, є, х or ї. On the English layout those letters sit on punctuation keys, so the last one may be left as punctuation: lzre. becomes дяку.. Select the word and use the Convert hotkey instead: lzre. becomes дякую.

Small fixes in the same pass

• Two initial capitals: HEllo becomes Hello and ПРивіт becomes Привіт. Short forms such as IDs and PDFs are left alone.
• Names of countries and major cities typed in lower case get their capital: kyiv becomes Kyiv and київ becomes Київ. Names that are also ordinary words are left out on purpose.

Both belong to automatic fixing and have a switch each. Backspace takes them back like any other fix.

Two typing habits that need no wrong layout

• Two spaces after a word become a full stop and one space, so hello and two spaces end up as hello.
• A hyphen between spaces becomes a dash when you press Space after it: an en dash (–) in most layouts, an em dash (—) when you type Ukrainian. This one is off until you switch it on.

Each has its own switch in Settings and works with automatic fixing off.

Where it does nothing

Fixing, the text hotkeys and double Shift stay off in the apps on the excluded list, which starts with terminals and code editors such as Terminal, iTerm2, Xcode and Visual Studio Code and which you can edit. They also stop while Active is off and, unless you change that, in games and full-screen apps.

Which languages

Switching is not tied to a language: the group shortcuts, the Fn tap and the plate work with every keyboard layout and input mode that macOS lets you select.

The automatic fix reads words with built-in language models for English, Ukrainian, Russian, French, German and Spanish. A layout whose language is not in that list is never fixed automatically, but switching to it works as always. An input mode that has no key layout of its own can be switched to, but the text typed in it is not read.