Lang Switcher settings, section by section

How to open it

Click the tray icon with either mouse button and choose “Settings…”. The “Lang Switcher — Settings” window opens. It has six sections, with “OK”, “Cancel” and “Apply” at the bottom.

1. General

• “Start when I sign in” is the same check box as in the tray menu: the program starts with Windows, with no UAC prompt.
• “Interface language:” offers 14 languages, and the program’s windows switch to the new one without a restart.
• “Appearance:” can be “Match system”, “Light” or “Dark”.
• “Sound feedback” plays a click for every press of the hotkey: a double click means the word was replaced, a single click means there was nothing to replace, and a dull thud means the program deliberately refused.
• With “Convert the selected text” cleared, the hotkey works only on the word you just typed.

2. Hotkey

“Key:” shows the current hotkey, and “Set” changes it. A single key works, and so does a combination with Ctrl, Alt or Shift, or a double Shift. The default is Pause. For details, see the hotkey page.

3. Layouts

With two layouts, there’s nothing to do here: the word goes to the other one. With three or more:

• In “Pair” mode, you choose “Source:” and “Target:”, and the word goes from one to the other; the other layouts stay out of it.
• In “Several layouts” mode, each press moves the word to the next layout in the cycle, and after the last one you get back what you typed. In the list under “Cycle: the tick takes part, the buttons set the order”, check the layouts you want, and use “Up” and “Down” to set the order. A cycle can hold up to eight layouts.

When you add a layout in Windows, the program picks it up as soon as you switch to another window or field.

4. Exclusions

Lang Switcher doesn’t work in the programs listed here. To add one, either click “Pick a program window” under “Automatically” and switch to that program within 5 seconds, or type its process name, such as game.exe, under “Manually” and click “Add”. To remove names, select them and click “Remove”. In an excluded program, nothing you type is remembered, and the hotkey goes to the program itself. This is for games with anti-cheat protection and for programs that read the keyboard directly, bypassing Windows.

For details, see Exclusions.

5. Diagnostics

• “Keep a journal” makes the program record its own events in a journal: only operation names and error codes, not a single keystroke. It’s off by default. “Journal folder:” shows where the journal is, and “Open the journal folder” opens it.
• “Save the journal” writes the journal right away; for two seconds the button says “Journal saved”.
• “Write to the author…” opens the feedback wizard. Nothing is sent by itself. A bug report can include the journal and details of your computer, so it goes to me by email, not to a public page: use “Copy the text” and “Copy the address” (send.me@panda-pishet-kod.dev), then send the email yourself. An idea goes to GitHub Issues: “Copy and open GitHub Issues” copies the text and opens the page, and you paste it there.

6. State

This section shows what the program is doing right now: “Working”, “Suspended”, “The keyboard hook is not installed” or “The hook is installed, but processing is off — restart the program”. Below that, it shows how many layouts the session has, whether autostart is in the registry, and which pair of layouts is in effect (in “Several layouts” mode, which cycle). These lines are filled in when the window opens and when you click “Apply”.

A grayed-out “Resume — restart needed” in the tray menu means the same thing: key processing turned itself off after errors. Choose “Exit” and start the program again. If it happens again, write to the author and attach the journal.

“OK”, “Cancel”, “Apply”

“OK” saves the settings and closes the window, “Apply” saves them and keeps the window open, and “Cancel” closes the window without changing anything. This goes for the hotkey too: a new one starts working after “OK” or “Apply”.

Only in the file

The window doesn’t show everything. These settings live only in %APPDATA%\Lang_Switcher\config.toml:

• how many seconds it takes for a word to be forgotten: [buffer] idle_timeout_s, 300 by default, 0 for never;
• how the text is replaced: [replacement] method; the default, auto, suits almost everyone;
• the clipboard pauses when selected text is converted: [selection] clipboard_timeout_ms and clipboard_restore_delay_ms;
• the feed: [letters] feed, until its switch appears in the “From the author” window.

Edit the file while the program isn’t running: it rewrites the file from memory, and your comments won’t survive.