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This is a very common issue for people working with more than one language: You start typing and when you look up at the screen you realize you were typing in the wrong keyboard layout (language)... only thing to do is mark the text (shift-home), delete, switch language (alt-leftshift) and start over.

My question - is there any tool, tweak, applet, whatever, that allows you instead to mark the text (shift-home) and with a magic keyboard shortcut replace it with what you intended to type?

Related question - is anyone with relevant experience able to say how much effort it would be to write such a tweak for windows? (any pointers on where to start would be great too). It sounds like a very easy job, but I have no experience in this kind of development, and the fact I can't find any such tools is strange considering it is a problem that affects almost everyone I know.

Thanks!

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  • I've seen the google indic-language transliteration tool/IME do something similar in windows, so it may be possible to do so as a specialised input method
    – Journeyman Geek
    Sep 2, 2013 at 7:49
  • Hm. That would depend a lot on which languages. If it's a one-to-one relationship between keys on the keyboard and characters that can appear (press a key, get a character), then it should be fairly simple to create one for specific languages. If you're using a more complex IME, e.g. for East Asian languages, then it becomes vastly more difficult.
    – Bob
    Sep 2, 2013 at 7:50
  • You could always copy your text and stick it into an online translator if you've typed a lot but it's probably quicker to just retype it in most cases... Of course, with any translator, you have to also hope it gets it right and if you're only half way through a sentence then I would guess, language dependant, that it would struggle!
    – Dave
    Sep 2, 2013 at 7:59
  • Thank you for your comments. Transliteration is a different game. I'm interested in something that would translate a set of key strokes from one keyboard layout to another. For example, 'נקכםרק', with 'before' - These are the same key strokes, first in Hebrew keyboard layout, then in English keyboard layout. When you type an English phrase while in Hebrew keyboard layout you get some giberish in Hebrew - and I'm looking for a tool to translate that into the English phrase I intended to type. I hope that's a clearer explanation.
    – HeYzN
    Sep 2, 2013 at 8:13
  • BTW, google search does this automatically, which is very cool :) That is, if you type Hebrew giberish in google search, it figures out you really meant to search for English phrase which is equal to the same key strokes if they were typed while in English keyboard layout.
    – HeYzN
    Sep 2, 2013 at 8:16

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