One unwelcome change in Win10 is how it implements languages and keyboard layouts. In Win7 and before, you could have Windows’s interface language in English but remove English Input Method Editor altogether, and just keep Spanish and Korean. Korean IME has a built-in English entry (using the right alt key), so English was not needed.
Win10 ties together default keyboard layout with OS display language, so in order to see the OS in English, I must have English IME. So now, instead of having two keyboard layouts, I have three.
Having two keyboard layouts means that the keyboard switching shortcut (Left Alt+Shift) acts as a on/off switch of sorts. I start typing thinking of typing Spanish and instead Korean comes out, no problemo I hit Alt+Shift without even looking at the taskbar and I will be on my desired IME, If what I see is not what I want, just hitting the shortcut switches the layout, which makes for very easy multilingual multitasking. However, if there’s three keyboard layouts in rotation, the alt+shift shortcut is no longer a on/off switch, it’s a cycle rotator. Now, if what I typed doesn’t come out as I intended, I can’t just mindlessly press the shortcut. if I do that, changes are I will do it a couple of times (like 4 or 5) without realizing that I “missed” the desired IME. So what used to be a “toggle” type shortcut now became a “cycle through” type shortcut. Now I need to look at the taskbar to see which is the current IME, then hit the shortcut, then look at the taskbar again because I don’t remember which IME comes in in the cycle order.
I wish it was like it was before. I don’t need the English IME.
Leave a Reply