No more Emojipedia and character map (and/or typing Unicodes)!

Good moaning folks!

Been ages since I blogged last, but well… life and shit happens 😕

Anyhow, recently I found out keyboard shortcuts to access emojis and symbols anytime, anywhere in Windows. Quite simple actually and I can’t believe I didn’t hear of it before! Lifesaving if you ask me because, in addition of being able to enter shiny emojis everywhere where they are supported (actually a lot more common than it seems on the first glance…), you can enter any character you would ever need without the character map or typing Unicodes (although you might find typing Unicodes quicker depending on your needs). If you wanna write about, dunno, El Niño and want to spell the phenomenon properly, but don’t have access to Ñ, these shortcuts can come in quite handy. Although, if you want quick access to Ñ and loads of more characters, I suggest you add US International keyboard layout in addition to your local layout and if your default layout is the basic US layout (which is the case in all Anglophone countries except the UK and Ireland 🙂), you might consider making US International default because because the US International layout is the same as the basic US layout with additional characters being accessed with AltGr (right Alt) key.
You might also want to try to customize your own layout with MS Keyboard Layout Creator (a free 🙂 program for Windows) to make it more functional like me.
But those are different stories 😀

Now, I should thank Mosh Hamedani for this “discovery” because it was his YouTube Python course that made me Google this shit out 😀 So, thanks Mosh! 😀

Anyhow, the keyboard shortcuts on American QWERTY keyboard layout are Win Key + “.” and Win Key + “;” (without the quotes, of course 🙂). As for other layouts, try pressing keys located where “.” and “;” are located on the American keyboard (in my case those are “.” and Č).
Now, once you press either of those combinations, you get a popup with emojis! 😀

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To gain access to symbols,  just click on the little Ω after clicking Win + “.”.

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Now, the reason I had to Google my ass of is because the shortcuts didn’t work for me at first! They started working after I accessed emojis on touch keyboard first. So to enable touch keyboard, right-click on the taskbar and checkmark Show touch keyboard button (I watched this tutorial). Once touch keyboard is enabled, a small keyboard icon is gonna appear left of the language code left of the clock. Click on it and click on the emoji icon to enter an emoji once the keyboard pops up

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You can just disable the touch keyboard afterwards if you want. Although, touch keyboard can be quite shiny, especially if you use other layout(s) in addition to your local layout (e.g. I have Greek, Serbian Cyrillic and US International in addition to Croatian) because you can see how the keys on those layouts are mapped, so you might consider keeping the touch keyboard 😉

That’s it, if you still have trouble with emoji/symbols shortcut, try switching to the American layout and this “guide” applies only to Windows I don’t know if this works on Linux; probably depends on a distro 😉

Well, cheers!

Update 15^th June

A small wee little update. With all the work I’m taking Mosh’s course slowly. Anyhow, the guy just said he hated cats and the motherfucker was LAUGHING! Well, Mosh, you are a fucking asshole and now I hate you! Was thinking of buying your advanced course after I finish this one, but now – if I’ll go for advanced at all – I’m either buy another advanced course or steal yours! And just after being smart he “encouraged” me to “get ‘his complete Python course'”. Well Mosh; I might indeed “get” it, but you won’t get a penny from me! Who the fuck do you think you are spreading such hatred?! It’s my time for (evil) laugh MWHAHAHA ×D
I mean, this morning before work me kitty spilled me juice all over the table and floor, so I had to waste precious morning time cleaning the mess (being half asleep, I doubt I did a pretty good job anyway 😕) and I ended up going to work thirsty! I’m going to kill the little punk for it when I return home 😡 but that was an isolated incident!

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Posted on 28^th April, 2020 at 18:54 GMT
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Waterfox

Do you use Firefox for Windows? Do you have 64bit system and are tired of having a 32bit browser, but like Firefox so much that you just don’t want to change your default browser?
Are you looking for a good Gecko engine (Firefox based) 64bit browser (if you use Linux or Mac, you’re good with Firefox ’cause Mozilla makes 64bit Firefox for Linux and Mac)? Look no more, Waterfox is here 😀

What’s the difference between Firefox and Waterfox (read About on Waterfox homepage)? Simple: Waterfox is 64bit version of Firefox (a recompiled Firefox source code to make the browser 64bit) 😀

The question is: Why hasn’t Mozzila released an official 64bit Firefox? Similarly to MICRO$OFT with its Office, 32bit technology, although slower, is still more reliable than 64bit. And there are more 32bit plugins. The difference is that MICRO$OFT recommends that you install 2bit version of Office even on 64bt Windows upon installing M$ Office, but you can still install the 64bit variant if you deem it fit. Mozilla, on the other hand, doesn’t offer 64bit Firefox for Windows at all. However, you can run both Firefox and Waterfox on the same machine while you can’t run both 32bit and 64 bit of M$ Office.

These are the plugins available for Waterfox. I’ve been using the browser for months now and haven’t come across a need for another plugin yet 😀 Nevertheless, I suggest you keep Firefox on your computer just in case. Waterfox shares Firefox settings, meaning whatever changes you make to Waterfox, they will immediately be applied to Firefox (and the other way around). All the addo-ns for Firefox (including language packs and spellcheckers) work on Waterfox flawlessly.

The only visual difference is that in place of Firefox, it says Waterfox and that the main theme colour is blue instead of orange.

This is what freshly installed Waterfox looks like

This is how I my Waterfox looks

Changing Fire-/Waterfox language

I mentioned language packs.  As far as I know, there is only American Waterfox installer.
Luckily, a Firefox language pack works perfectly. You can download the language pack(s) you desire here.

Once you install a language pack (both on Firefox and Waterfox), you’ll probably wonder how to change the lingo. If you go to Waterfox/Add-ons/Languages, you’ll see the lingo(es) you installed, but no way to switch the language.

You’re probably asking yourself What the FUCK?!
And rightly so. Why there isn’t a simple way to change the language is beyond me.

There are two ways that I know of:

Firstly, I’ll explain how to do it without installing an add-on.
In the address bar of Water-/Fire-fox write about:config and press Enter
You’re gonna get This might void your warranty! warning telling you that you’re messing with advanced settings (why the hell would changing the application language be an advanced setting?!). Press I’ll be careful, I promise!

Now search for general.useragent.locale and double-click on the value.

Enter the language code (hr is for Croatian). Tip: The language code of your lingo should be shown in Waterfox/Add-ons/Languages. In addition, you can look for the code at Wikipedia (either find it on this list or Wiki the language). Press OK when you’re done and restart Waterfox.

If you want it simple, you’ll have to download an add-on since Mozilla hasn’t made it simple. The add-on is called Local Switcher. Once installed, you’ll get a simple drop-down menu that offers you languages you have installed.

Choose your lingo and restart Waterfox. Tip: After changing the language, you can disable Locale Switcher since the only purpose of the add-on is switching languages.

Yes, the language change applies both to Fire- and Waterfox (’cause it is a setting), so you’ll have both browsers in the same lingo.

The only visible difference between Firefox and Waterfox is now gone. Since language packs are built for Firefox, the text Waterfox will be replaced with Firefox everywhere (even the big text opening Waterfox menu). The colour will still be blue, though, and it will say Waterfox in About Firefox ’cause that’s an image independent of the language.

Download Waterfox here.
Download Waterfox plugins here.

Tip: If you find images in this post too small, click on them to enlarge them.