Visual settings

To open the Management Console either right click on Optikey itself (not the icon in the taskbar) and select to open the management console from the context menu that opens, or with Optikey selected press 'ALT' and 'M' on your keyboard (physical or on-screen if using a tablet), then select the 'Visuals' tab at the top. You can interact with the Management Console using either Optikey's mouse and keyboard emulation, or a physical mouse and keyboard.

Look

1. Theme: The look and feel of Optikey.

2. Scratchpad # of lines: How many lines of text to display in the scratchpad at the top of Optikey (where your typed words appear). Fewer lines = large text.

3. Cursor width (pixels): The width of the displayed cursor (mouse pointer) when simulating mouse input. Specified in pixels.

4. Cursor height (pixels): The height of the displayed cursor (mouse pointer) when simulating mouse input. Specified in pixels.

5. Magnify source (percentage of screen): Size of the area which will be captured around the selected point for magnification.

6. Magnify destination (percentage of screen): Size of the area in the middle of the screen which will display the magnified area. The ratio of the Magnify Source to Magnify Destination will determine the magnification level, e.g. 10% source and 60% destination = x6 magnification.

7. Conversation only mode: If checked Optikey will start and remain in the 'Conversation Only' mode, which is a simplified keyboard set, designed when you only want to use Optikey to type and speak words and sentences. Turn this setting off if you want to be able to move between 'Conversation' and keyboard/mouse simulation modes.

8. Startup keyboard: Which keyboard would you like to be displayed when you first start Optikey.

9. Minimised position: When Optikey's main window is minimised (from the menu) this setting determines to which screen edge it should minimise.

10. Full dock thickness (as % of screen): When Optikey is docked and full sized (expanded, as opposed to being in a collapsed dock state) this setting controls how much of the screen it fills.

11. Collapsed dock thickness (as % of full dock thickness): When Optikey is docked and collapsed (as opposed to being in a full sized, expanded dock state) this setting controls how much of the screen it fills, as a percentage of the full, expanded dock size. If the full dock thickness takes up 50% of the screen, and this setting is also 50%, then the collapsed dock will take up 25% of the screen.

    Font

12. Font family: The font to use throught Optikey. This does not affect the Management Console.

13. Font stretch: The font stretch to use throughout Optikey, e.g. Normal, Condensed, etc. The available values depends on the selected Font Family. This does not affect the Management Console.

14. Font weight: The font weight to use throughout Optikey, e.g. Light, Normal, Bold, etc. The available values depends on the selected Font Family. This does not affect the Management Console.

15. Key text transformation: When a key is "current" (in other words a key has focus) some keys replace their symbol/image with text to explain the function of the key (e.g. the 'SPEAK' key). This setting allows you to change the casing of the text.

    Notifications

16. Horizontal fill (percentage of Optikey): The horizontal size of any popup notification messages that are displayed within Optikey (e.g. welcome messages, or error messages), as a percentage of Optikey's size. 100% to completely cover Optikey horizontally, or less for the notifcation to appear within the bounds of Optikey.

17. Vertical fill (percentage of Optikey): The vertical size of any popup notification messages that are displayed within Optikey (e.g. welcome messages, or error messages), as a percentage of Optikey's size. 100% to completely cover Optikey vertically, or less for the notifcation to appear within the bounds of Optikey.

18. Display for X seconds per message character: This setting controls for how long popup messages are displayed, by specifying an amount of seconds for each of the letters in the displayed message. This number should remain small to prevent notifications from being displayed for too long. Small changes can make a big difference.