MyCharacters

[Little John]

//edit 2025-03-29: Version 1.11 released

When writing, you often need special characters that are not available on the computer keyboard. Searching for these characters in an extensive character table each time is cumbersome and time-consuming. Since it is mostly the same special characters over and over again (an example of the Pareto principle), it is helpful to create a personal collection that allows you to insert these characters quickly and easily into any text processing program. This is the purpose of MyCharacters.
One entry can contain several characters. This is very convenient for characters that occur in pairs, such as quotation marks. So the program can not only store the characters themselves, but also their proper combination and order.
In the rare cases when special characters are needed that are not in your own collection, you can conveniently access an extensive character table of your choice.
MyCharacters is a 64-bit program for Windows. It has been tested on Windows 10 and 11.

The program currently supports English, German and French. Please feel free to translate it into other languages.
You can download a portable version and a setup version from my website:
https://luethje.eu/prog/index.htm

Any constructive feedback is appreciated.

[Thorsten1867]

A pop-up menu for delete and add would be great.

[Little John]

A pop-up menu for delete and add would be great.

There are items for delete and add in the main menu of the program.

[jacdelad]

Hi Little John,
yesterday mk-soft postet a nice "hack" to show how to realize a fake progressbar within a ListIconGadget by using UTF8-characters. This led me to write a small program to explore the UTF8 character set, which let me find a lot of interesting characters abusable for other uses.
However, maybe you could consider integrating some "UTF8-Explorer" to explore and find the whole UTF8-Set.
Also I would like to suggest to create a preview with enlarged characters (I can barely see the ones coming predefined), maybe also different fonts and a preview how they look when you put two or three of them next to each other (that way I found out which characters looked best for the progressbar). This is what I would add.

[Little John]

@jacdelad:
Thanks for your reply. However, your suggestions go beyond the purpose of this program.
I think a program such as e.g. Babelmap does what you want. I have no intention to re-invent such a program.
The purpose of this small tool is not to explore characters, but to provide quick and convenient access to known characters that are frequently used.

[jacdelad]

Aye thanks for the answer. I'll have a look at Babelmap or do it myself. Anyway, keep going!

[deeproot]

@Little John

Very nice, works fine on my Win7 system - keep going with it

It is addressing the same kind of issue as my own small desktop utility, Extra Keys. However, your approach is completely different and very interesting - I can imagine situations where it could be really useful.

A while ago I found a number of different tools that did similar things - all had various pros-and-cons. Like yourself my program was written for specific purposes and not intended to replace other ways of doing related functions. I'm perfectly happy with that. It was originally in VB6 but converted to PB many years ago. It's closed source as it's related to my much larger commercial project but the code is mostly pretty simple. https://www.deeproot.co.uk/extrakeys.html

[deeproot]

Just a suggestion - - in the startup examples the Smiley character is not displayed in the window because it's not in the font. Inevitably this might also happen for some other Unicode characters. As expected the program action still works if the target application has a suitable font.

I also had this problem so I embedded a suitable font in the exe file - - see: https://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtopic.php?p=455020. I made a custom font derived from Deja Vu, with a wide Unicode range and free license.

[Little John]

Hello deeproot,

many thanks for your comprehensive replies! They are very useful to me.

Thank you also for testing on Windows 7, which I don't have the opportunity to do.
Your tool “Extra Keys” was obviously written with a lot of thought and care, and it is well documented.
This made me realize what could be improved in the documentation of my program ( done ).

Despite the different approaches, the underlying problems are the same. I was aware of the font problem, but I didn't have a solution for it. Embedding a font in the EXE file is a great idea – I didn't even know it was possible. I'll probably do that in a future version of my program ... provided I'll be able to do so.
Thanks again for your valuable information!

[Little John]

Version 1.00 beta 2 released.

Changes:

• New method to insert the characters into the target application.
• Sample character list slightly changed.
• Documentation improved.

[Little John]

Version 1.00 final released.

Changes:

• Added images to some items of the main menu.
• Setup program slightly enhanced.

[Little John]

A French language file is now available for download on my website.
Un grand merci au traducteur!

[HeX0R]

Are you open for "improvement requests" or is it really considered to be final?
I was in need of a tool like this, but find it not very intuitive, if it is your final version, no problem, I'll do something on my own then.

[Little John]

Are you open for "improvement requests" or is it really considered to be final?
I was in need of a tool like this, but find it not very intuitive, if it is your final version, no problem, I'll do something on my own then.

I wrote "Version 1.00 final", because previously there were just beta versions of 1.00.
That is by no way the final version of the program.
Generally speaking, I always welcome suggestions for improvement.
When a program of mine gets better, I'll also have a benefit myself.

So thank you for your interest in the program, and please tell me your suggestions.

PS: Personally I'm using a newer version with multiple tabs, so I have different groups of charcters ("General", "Greek chars", "Fractions", "Arrows").
However, this version is not yet ready for release.

[HeX0R]

That multiple tab version sounds interesting, although it isn't what I'm looking for (for now).
Your tool is exactly what I need!
I need so many times special characters, like µ or ±, sure I can write "uA" e.g. or +/- 20mA, but somehow I'm sometimes a perfectionist and don't like this.
So either I'm looking up the unicode character and paste it manually or I'm doing it like above.
Then I found your tool.

What I don't like

• Adding a new character takes me two clicks!
  Why not add the plus icon next to the hamburger icon (alternatively add a pop-up menu)
• Since we can only add unicode characters here anway, your tool should accept \u201E or 201E as well
• Since I have to look-up the character I need, I'd also like to be able to paste the found character directly.
  Usually I look-up characters via google, when I found it, I copy the character.
  In your tool, I have to go a second step, search for the unicode and then add \u also to it and I'm good to go.
  This feels pretty unintuitive, to me at least.
  If you can support direct insert of unicode characters, we probably can ignore point 2 above. Guess you somehow need to distinguish between unicodes and characters
• [marginal]The OK and the Cancel buttons in the new character dialog feels swapped
• [Edit]Apps, which ask me if I really want to close them are also a little "outdated"
  That is from a time, where the preference dialogs still had an apply button