Installation

Start VPSKeys

A VPSKeys logo banner will appear briefly.

VPSKeys icon will show up in the right hand side of the task bar.

NOTE: If VPSKeys is in Vietnamese mode, the icon of VPSKeys will have a writing hand on top. If Vietnamese mode is off, VPSKeys icon doesn't have the hand image.

VPSKeys usage

The functions of the buttons at the bottom are:

Biên Soạn: Notes about VPSKeys.
OK: Close VPSKeys control panel.
Ngưng: Terminate VPSkeys.
Giúp đỡ: View help file.

In VPSKeys control panel, there are four (4) tabs. Their usages are:

Bảng Điều Chỉnh (Adjustment)

Cách Đánh (Typing mode): Select one of the following typing mode
Việt Nam: Vietnamese
Địa Phương: local languages (English, French, German, etc...)
Viet Net: Vietnamese but display in Vietnet mode

Chức Năng Tự Động (Automatic features):

Chính Tả (Spelling): Toggle on/off spelling mode. When user type a mispelled words, VPSkeys will beep.
Tự Điển (Hỏi/Ngã dictionary): Toggle on/off Hỏi/Ngã dictionary. See the section about Hỏi/Ngã dictionary later in this document.
Tốc Ký (Short cut): Toggle on/off the short-cut. See the section about Tốc Ký.
Autoload: If selected, VPSKeys will automatically load when Windows starts. Otherwise, user has to start VPSKeys manually.

Bảng Kỹ Thuật (Keys/Encoding cofiguration)

Sửa Bảng Mã (Encoding tables): There are a variety of Vietnamese 8-bit encoding tables such as VPS, VNI, VISCII, TCVN, etc... and 16-bit Unicode. Select from the listbox the encoding table you want to use.

NOTE: Each encoding table goes with its specific fonts. For example, if you chose VPS table, you need to choose corresponding VPS fonts in Windows applications. You can not select one encoding to use with a different type of fonts. Please take note of this.

Sửa Nút Dấu (Accent-key type): Select either "regular" or "function keys". If "function keys" is selected, the key F1, F2, etc.. will represent the Vietnamese accent. If "regular" is selected, you can use regular keys on keyboard to represent the accents.

Chọn Nút Dấu (Accent-key selection): If you select "regular" keys, then those little box underneath the character [á], [à], [ả], etc... represent that particular accent. There are 2 popular ways to represent Vietnamese accent:
1. Select the number keys 1, 2, 3, ... to represent sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, ...
2. Select the key ' ? . etc.. to represent sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã, ... because these keys look familiar to the actual Vietnamese accent
However, it is up to the user to configure these accent keys.

Đánh Dấu Đôi (double-key shortcuts): Toggle on/off the double-key typing mode. In this mode, you can quickly type these characters by:
ă: press [a] twice
ê: press [e] twice
ơ: press [o] twice
ư: press [u] twice
đ: press [d] twice

Chọn Nút Thoát (Escape key): When you type Vietnamese together with other languages (English, French, etc...), VPSKeys will not know which language you are currently typing. Thus there will be time, word like door in English will become dơr. To overcome this problem, you can turn off Vietnamese mode. However this method will slow you down. Instead, you can press an escakey key to inform VPSKeys to leave the next character as is, no interpretation. Back to the example of door, you will type d o \ o r to have door. Key '\' is the escape key. You can configure any key to be the escape key.

Bảng Hoán Chuyển (Text conversion)

This feature of VPSKeys is used to convert text and text files between various Vietnamese format (encoding).

Hoán chuyển hồ sơ (file conversion): From listbox [Từ] (from), select the format of the original text file you want to convert. In the listbox [Hồ Sơ] (Filename) below, enter the file name or click the browse button to look for it. From listbox [Sang] (to), select the format that you want to convert to. In the list box [Hồ Sơ] (filename) below, enter the new file name. (Note: you could keep the same file name, but with different extension).

Note: VPSKeys is able to convert text file only. If the file is in word processing format such as Word, PageMaker, etc... you need to save them to text (save as text) before conversion.

AUTO: In the listbox [Từ] (from) there is an entry labeled 'AUTO'. If you select this, VPSkeys will automatically detect the format of the original text file. You only need to select the format that you want to convert to. If VPSKeys unable to detect the text format automatically, you have to select the original text file format manually for the conversion.

Drag-drop: When selected, you just drag and drop a text file into VPSKeys control panel. VPSKeys will automatically convert the text file (with current selected from/to text format).

Hoán chuyển Clipboard (clipboard conversion): If you want to convert text on the fly using cut/paste method, do the following: select the from/to text format in the from/to listboxes. Select the text that you want to convert in any Windows application. Click on the button [Hoán Chuyển Clipboard]. VPSkeys will convert the text in clipboard and put the result converted text back to the clipboard. You can paste the converted text to any Windows application.

Bảng Tốc Ký (Short-cut keys)

Short-cuts is a way to shorten the typing a long word or a group of words. For example, if you frequently type the phrase 'Việt Nam', you can shortern the keying to 'vn'. When ever you press 'vn', VPSKeys will expand it to 'Việt Nam'.

NOTE: To use Short-cut mode, toggle on the check box labeled "Tốc Ký" in the tab "Điều Chỉnh".

Hỏi Ngã dictionary

In the tab "Điều Chỉnh" there is a check box labeled "Tự Điển". If toggled on, VPSKeys will automatically check for hỏi/ngã misspell while you are typing. For example, if a word is definitely wrong:

Or if a word could have either "hỏi" or "ngã", VPSKeys will indicate so:

Toggle on/off Vietnamese mode

Using control panel: In "Điều Chỉnh" tab, "Cách Đánh", click on Vietnam or local to choose Vietnamese mode or local language.
Using keyboard: Press Alt + Shift to toggle on/off Vietnamese mode.

NOTE: If you want to know Vietnamese mode is on or off, check the VPSKeys icon. If Vietnamese mode is on, there will be a writing hand on top of the icon. Otherwise, Vietnamese mode is off.

Misc

Instead of clicking on VPSkeys icon to access the control panel, you can right-click on VPSKeys icon to access the quick-menu as shown here: