Your first five minutes with Lang Switcher

The tray icon

If you left “Launch Lang Switcher” checked on the last page of the setup wizard, the program starts right away and sits in the tray, on the right of the taskbar next to the clock. Hover over the icon, and the tooltip says “Lang Switcher — active”, or “Lang Switcher — suspended” while it’s suspended. If you can’t see the icon, it may be hidden under the “^” arrow.

From then on, the program starts by itself when you sign in, with no UAC prompt. To turn that off, clear “Start when I sign in” in the tray menu.

Click the icon with either mouse button to open the menu:

• “Suspend” stops the program from fixing words until you choose “Resume”.
• “Settings…” opens the settings window. Every section is explained in Settings, section by section.
• “Start when I sign in” is a check box: while it’s checked, the program starts with Windows.
• “Write to the author…” opens the feedback wizard. Nothing is sent by itself: a bug report goes to me by email, an idea goes to GitHub Issues, and either way you send it yourself.
• “About” shows the version, the “How to use it” section and the “From the author…” button.
• “Exit” closes the program.

When there’s a new letter or a new version, “An unread letter…” or “Version … is available…” shows up above these items.

The welcome letter

When the program starts for the first time, it opens the “A letter from the author” window. The letter begins with “Hello! My name is Panda.” It says what the program does, shows how руддщ turns into “hello”, and lists “Three things for the first day” (in the program’s own words):

1. Pause converts the last word you typed and switches the layout. It works in any window.
2. Press Pause again and the word comes back exactly as it was, letter for letter.
3. The tray icon: pause, settings and «About», which has a «How to use it» section.

At the bottom are “Open settings” and “Got it”. The welcome letter is shown only once, and its window doesn’t steal focus, so you can keep typing.

Your first fix

Say you meant to type hello, but the Russian layout was still on, and you got руддщ. Press Pause/Break. The word turns into “hello”, and the window switches to the English layout, so you can go on typing in English. Press Pause again, and руддщ comes back, letter for letter. The program remembers the keys you pressed, not the result, so you can go back and forth as often as you like. It works the same way with any second layout: Hebrew, Greek, Arabic or any other.

• A space after the word is fine: the word is converted together with the spaces after it.
• The word is forgotten as soon as you move on from it: Enter, Tab, Esc, the arrow keys, Home, End, Delete, a mouse click, another window or field, or a combination with Ctrl, Alt or Win. It’s also forgotten after five minutes without typing. Backspace erases a letter from the program’s memory, too.
• Switching by hand is fine: Alt+Shift, Ctrl+Shift and Win+Space don’t erase the word. The program remembers the layout of every keystroke.
• Selected text: select it and press Pause, and the selection is converted (if that’s turned on and Ctrl+C works), each word in its own direction.

If it didn’t work

• You heard a single click, but the word stayed the same. The word had already been forgotten: there was a mouse click or Enter after it, you switched windows, or five minutes went by. Select the word and press Pause again.
• The key does nothing at all. Check the tooltip over the icon. If it says “Lang Switcher — suspended”, choose “Resume” in the tray menu.
• A window says “Lang Switcher is already running in this session.” The program is already running, and you don’t need a second copy. Its icon is in the tray; if you can’t see it, it may be hidden under the “^” arrow.
• No Pause key on your laptop? Set another key, a combination or a double Shift: see the hotkey page.