3.10 The Cursor.
The cursor is an important concept because many KeyWord commands use the cursor
as a reference to determine where to apply the command. It is also very important to
understand exactly where the cursor is in your document so that your changes occur
as you intend. Otherwise you may find the changes you make are wrong.
The cursor is a pointer to a single character in a document. The cursor is normally
indicated on the Braille display as two dots below the usual six dot Braille cell;
dots 7 and 8, This is the factory setting form of the cursor. To find out how to change
the form of the cursor, refer to 5.4 Braille Display Options. When you are using
speech you can tell which character the cursor is on by
pressing READ with COMMA. You can use the read current word, sentence and
paragraph commands to determine the context of the cursor.
Editing takes effect at the cursor position. Whether you are using the Braille display
or listening to the voice, if you want to edit the document, you must position the
cursor at the point you want the change to start. The cursor indicates the position in
the document where the next character will appear when it is typed. The character is
inserted at the cursor position and everything to the right, including the cursor, is
shifted one character to the right to make room. Pressing BACKSPACE deletes the
character immediately to the left of the cursor, and everything to the right of the
cursor is moved one character to the left to fill the vacated space.
3.10.1 Using the Touch Cursor.
Remember that the buttons immediately behind each cell of the Braille display
comprise the touch cursor. To position the cursor at a particular cell you only have to
press the cursor button associated with that cell. This is convenient to start editing at
that point. First find the Braille cell in the Braille display where you want to start
editing. Now move your finger directly above that cell and away from yourself until
you feel a vertical ridge that curves upwards slightly. Press this and you notice a
tactile action that confirms your press. Read the cell again. You find that the cursor is
now positioned at the cell because dots 7 and 8 are displayed, assuming that you are
using the standard cursor form. It is as simple as that.
3.10.2 Displaying the Cursor.
Having the cursor always displayed on the Braille display can make reading
awkward, but it is needed for editing. KeySoft provides several Braille display modes
to suit the situation. When you first enter KeyWord, Automatic mode is the default.
You will probably use this mode most of the time when you are typing and/or
proofreading. Here the cursor is turned on automatically when you are editing and
turned off when you are reading. Reading with the ADVANCE and BACK thumb
keys leaves the cursor position unchanged so that you can read the context without
losing your place.
You can always bring the cursor to a particular cell in any of the following ways:
Press the touch cursor directly behind the cell;
Press READ with COMMA to read the current character or READ with K to read the
current word;
Bring the cursor to the first cell of the display by pressing BACK and
ADVANCE together.
Some format indicators are displayed only if the cursor is on the indicator, others are
displayed always. Format indicators are discussed later in 3.12 Format Indicators.
3.10.3 Cursor Movement Modes.
KeySoft has a range of specific moving commands designed to make moving around
a document quick and accurate. These were listed in 3.8.2 Listening to a Document.
When you are reading text organized in sentences and paragraphs, then commands to
move the cursor by sentence or paragraph are very useful. For example:
READ with O moves the cursor to the beginning of the next sentence;
READ with 9 moves the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph.
However when working with poetry or lists, it would be more convenient to move by
a line at a time than by sentence. To allow the most efficient cursor movement for the
text you are working with, KeySoft provides 3 cursor movement modes; sentence and
paragraph, line and sentence, and column. When you change the cursor movement
mode, the moving commands themselves don't change, just the way in which they
direct the cursor to move around the text.
To change the cursor movement mode while in a document, press READ with S
repeatedly, until you get to the one you want. These affect the operation of the
READ with U, READ with O, READ with 7 and READ with 9 reading commands.
They also affect what is spoken by these commands and by the
CONTROL with 8 and CONTROL with I commands.
The default cursor movement mode is Sentence and Paragraph. When in Line
and Sentence Mode:
READ with O reads the next line; READ with 7 reads the next section. Likewise,
READ with U reads the previous line and READ with 7 reads the previous section.
In Line Mode, the word "section" has a specific meaning. The Current Section starts
at the last blank line before the cursor, and continues until the first blank line after the
cursor. Similarly, the Next Section starts at the first blank line after the cursor, and
continues until the following blank line. Line Mode is useful when you are concerned
with the layout of the document. Among other purposes, it's a good way of checking
for blank lines.
The third Reading Mode is called Column Mode, and acts as follows:
READ with O moves the cursor down a line but keeping it in the same column. It
reads the current word on this line;
READ with 9, reads the next section.
Column Mode is effective for reviewing text that is laid out in a table. It allows you
to move up or down a column in a table, reading entries one at a time.
Although we have only given two examples, the current cursor movement mode
affects all reading commands that relate to sentences and paragraphs. This is also true
for deletion commands. For instance, in Sentence and Paragraph mode,
CONTROL with I deletes to the end of the sentence, but in Line Mode it deletes to
the end of the line. The cursor movement mode also affects the Quick Mark
commands in the Block Menu.