e-Tip #91 - September 2009 - Text-Only Version <> Keith Vincent: Total Eclipse Version 4.3 Speaker Seating Chart As of Version 4.3 of Total Eclipse, the Speakers List now offers a helpful seating chart. There are two ways to open the seating chart. One way is to open the Speaker List (F2) and then put a check in the box next to “Seating.” Another way is to open the “View Toggles” dialogue (Shift Ctrl F3) and then put a check in the box next to “Seating chart.” This is also a way to toggle the seating chart to be shown or hidden. When the seating chart opens, it automatically creates placecards for the names in the Speaker List. The placecards will initially appear arranged in a cascade. Use the mouse to click and drag the placecards to reflect where speakers are sitting. Also use the mouse to hover over the edge of the dialogue and then click and drag if you want to resize the seating chart, making it smaller or larger. You can also use the mouse the click and drag the seating chart to the place it where you want it to be on your screen. If you have a second monitor attached to your computer, you can even drag the seating chart to the right until it is displayed on your extended desktop. You can adjust the zoom level and transparency of the seating chart. In Windows XP, look for icons on the title bar of the seating chart dialogue. The magnifying glass lets you zoom in or out. You could make the text of the placecards large or small, as you prefer. The eye icon is for adjusting transparency. (Windows Vista hides these icons, but you can right-click on the Eclipse icon next to the words “Seating chart” and then select “Customize.”) The Seating Chart is really an enhancement of the familiar Speaker List. So it reflects the names of current speakers, their shortcut numbers, and whatever colors you’ve assigned to these names. If you want to change the color of a speaker’s name, just select the name on the Speaker List and then use the “Change” button. Then use the “Color” button to pick a basic color or define a custom color. The changes will be reflected the next time you open the seating chart. If you already had the seating chart open while making such color changes, just close it and re-open it so that your color changes will be reflected. There’s a new Visualizer movie on the Seating Chart. It’s in “Visualizer Topics,” Section 4, General Editing, “I - Tracking Speakers: The Seating Chart.” Check it out. <> Keith Vincent: Auto-Split Window & Auto-Brief In the “Realtime” section of Eclipse user settings, you’ll find a “Split window” option that I described way back in e-Tip #58 (July 2006). You’ll also find a checkbox for “Auto-Brief.” During a recent webinar, I was asked how these two features can work togther. Each time you start realtime transcription, Eclipse can automatically split the text window into two panes. You can edit in either the top or the bottom pane; but the top pane is intended for editing while the bottom pane defaults to following along as you write. Thus, you could have a scopist working by your side, but you would want to make sure there is NOT a check in the box next to “Follow always.” The scopist would edit in the top pane while the reporter watches translation in the bottom pane. The number that appears next to “Split Window” controls the initial size of the bottom pane when Eclipse automatically splits the realtime window for you. I like to set this at 30. The bottom 30 percent of the text window follows along as I write, and the upper 70 percent is where I edit during pauses. The yellow Auto-Brief window will position itself in the pane where your editing cursor is located. If you place your cursor in the bottom pane, the Auto-Brief list will want to position itself in that part of the screen. I just leave my cursor placed in the top pane and reserve the bottom pane for watching what I’m writing. You’ll notice if you move your cursor back a few lines, the Auto-Brief list will hide itself to avoid covering up text that you may want to edit. The Auto-Brief list will reappear when you move the cursor down a few lines. Thus, I do not put a really big number in the box next to “Split Window.” I do NOT want the bottom pane to be so large that the Auto-Brief list will always hide itself to permit editing in the top pane. I’ve used both “Auto-Brief” and “Split Window” during realtime transcription, with a scopist by my side. It worked beautifully, and I wasn’t even using a notebook computer with a huge screen. In the bottom pane, I could see about three lines of text translating in real time. In the top pane, my scopist had at least seven or eight lines of text. I asked the scopist to edit in the last few lines of the upper pane so that the Auto-Brief window would not tend to hide itself. I could see and use Auto-Brief suggestions as I was writing, but my scopist could still edit in real time. Final notes. When your text window opens, Eclipse will default to the zoom level indicated in the “Display” section of user settings. However, you can place your cursor in the top pane or bottom pane and then use Ctrl Shift F7 to zoom in or Ctrl Shift F8 to zoom out. Zooming out would allow more lines to display in that part of the text window. What if you accidentally click on the bottom pane and it’s no longer following along as you write? Just press Ctrl PageDown to place the cursor at the bottom of the job. Then click somewhere on the top pane. Remember: Top pane for editing, bottom pane for following the last bit of realtime translation. <> Keith Vincent: A Correction for e-Tip #90 on Auto-Brief Customization In e-Tip #90, we showed how to customize Auto-Brief suggestions; but I put too many hyphens in my example. Here’s a correction. Your User Settings might contain lines in the Auto-Brief steno theory that look like this: +-PBLG -TD -SZ If you have a line that starts with a plus sign to show keys that must be in all Auto-Brief suggestions, use a hyphen if there are no vowels involved and you’re pointing to the right side of the keyboard. For lines that start with a minus sign to indicate keys that must NOT be in Auto-Brief suggestions, you do NOT need to use a second hyphen to indicate a final consonant.