Problem running AllChars

Factual Questions
1

I have AllChars (which allows the easy entry of the characters in the upper 128 character set) installed on several other computers and it runs perfectly out of the box. I have just installed (and reinstalled it) on my new Win 7 (professional, SP1) laptop and it does not function at all. The email I sent to the address on the manual bounced (“no such address”) and when I google help with AllChars, all I get is the manual and the FAQ, which are no help at all. When I try to run it again, I get the message that it is already running and a second copy cannot be run.

I have tried everything I can think of, including using the right control key and nothing works. Has any doper faced this problem and, more importantly, resolved it?

2

Reading the reviews of it on SourceForge, looks like it doesn’t work on Windows 64 bit, which is what you probably have. If you do have 32 bit, it might just not work on Windows 7 and up (which is not listed on the app’s homepage as a supported OS).

There’s some info in the reviews about alternatives.

3

Too sad. It did work on my previous laptop (at least five years old) that also had a 64 bit version of Win 7 on it. Thanks, Zip. I won’t spend any more time worrying about it.

4

It looks like FreeCompose might do something similar.

If you just need accents, even the built-in US International keyboard layout would work.

5

I’ve been reasonably happy with unichars as a replacement, although I still think allchars was better.

6

FreeCompose simply doesn’t work, as far as I can tell. It comes without documentation and I cannot guess what the compose key might be. An FAQ describes it as the application key and claims it is just to the left of the right hand control key. On my keyboard, that is the PrtSc key and when I press it it opens a screen shot window. There is an Fn key for activating the alternate gadgets on the F keys and a Win key, but neither of those has any effect.

I also tried unichars, but that works only with a unicode enabled editor, which mine isn’t. Shame.

7

It’s this one:

Just tried it and it works, though I’m not sure if it’s unicode-dependent.

Scancode 117, if that helps. If you don’t have that key, you can map another key to it using the remapkey program from Microsoft. That link goes to the binary that I extracted from their W2K3 resource kit, which you can download instead if you don’t trust me.