Hi, I am new here and currently very much a beginner of Polish but highly motivated, and tonight I am doing a little research on Polish keyboards.
I would like to add this post to the discussion above in case it helps somebody.
I would like to make any reader here aware that there is a SMALL APPLICATION called PiBoard by Pi.Solutions available for free online. It works in my browsers MS Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox and thus also when writing in a web-based email account. It doesn't work in MS Word or Outlook, though, at least with me it didn't.
PiBoard is, I would say, probably more suitable for people who want an EASY solution for typing the special Polish letters (hence they are not trained to type the special Polish letters with either the 214 keyboard or the programmer's keyboard with the Alt business as alluded to above (and that "ALT business" I am going to explain later for the ones who don't know yet what is meant).
Also, I think, it's good for people who don't always need or want to type fast although you can also exit the program or suspend its functionality when your typing gets faster and resume it when it gets slower! This might be necessary because of its function of fast double-clicking 10 specific letters to get the special Polish letters ± æ ê ³ ñ ó ¶ ¼ ¿ + the EURO symbol €. (You'll understand what I mean once you've tried it.)
To get to know more about PiBoard, please go to the posting in polishforums.com in the /general-language-17/ section titled /clever-innovative-polish-keyboard-layout-must-see-34661/ and read the author's description. Unlike a reader that said it was a crappy program, I don't think it is. I think it could serve some people very well.
(Polishforums.com wouldn't let me post a link, so I left out the usual world-wide-wait and split the link into 3 sections. Please put them together again and paste them into the address bar of your browser!)
Now, for those of you who are savvy users of computers, I have probably said enough. They can get the program or not and make it work, if they did get it. Then, if they don't like it, they can delete it. I haven't had any virus come from it.
For the others or for those who want to know what more I have to say, please read on:
So, if you're interested in downloading it, go to code.google.com/p/piboard/downloads/list and get the latest version, unzip it and read the readme.txt: There's an important note there by the author:
Note:You must install the keyboard layout for the language you want to use...
This means it will ONLY work if you set the Windows key settings to the Polish key settings which are NOT like the 214 keyboard (Windows XP calls it "Polish (214)" but like the other one (that Windows XP calls "Polish (Programmers)" as I read) with the functionality ALT (ALTGr on, for instance, an Austrian keyboard, that's the ALT near the Enter key) + a gives you the letter ±, ALTGr + s gives you ¶, ALTGr + c gives you æ, etc.
When you have started the small application PiBoard by Pi.Solutions, you can just quickly double-click the letter a, for example, and the letter ± will appear, or you can quickly double-click the letter s and ¶ will appear, also double-click z for ¿, x for ¼, c for æ, e for ê, n for ñ, l for ³, o for ó and u for € (Euro symbol).
I hope this helped at least one person.
Birgit from Vienna, Austria
P.S.:
Finally, for those of you who have Windows XP (like me and that's what I can describe) and who don't know how to set a computer with an American keyboard that might have only been used for typing in English so far to type like the "Polish (Programmers)" keyboard, here is the description of what you need to do:
Right-click your task bar on an empty spot, go to toolbar and check if the language bar is ticked (it should be ticked).
Now, somewhere the language bar must be seen (either on your task bar or separated from it as an stand-alone-bar. Find it and click on the little triangle that is pointing down (Options is might say in a bubble) and go to Settings.
Check in the list if, by chance, someone has already added PL Polish (Programmers).
If not, then click on ADD and choose Polish as the input language. Then you need to choose the keyboard "Polish (Programmers)".
When you keep your language bar visible, eg on the task bar, then check that it's set to PL and that where the symbol of a keyboard is, the tick is to the left of Polish and not Polish (214). The latter can only be there if it also has been added in the settings.
Btw, the way I quickly switch between my key settings (German, English, Polish) is by clicking Ctrl + Shift. (Set in Settings of the language bar, click Key settings to choose how to switch).
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