Archant bust?

[mint]

Sue, what about the oe together as in coeur?  And the 2 dots as in Citroen?

Thank you for your patience, I have all the others now[:D]

[suein56]

mint wrote the following post at 02 Sep 2020 19:38:

Sue, what about the oe together as in coeur? And the 2 dots as in Citroen?

I have a built in autocorrect on my laptop .. which underlines in red my mistakes or omissions .. and when I right click on the erroneous word a list appears giving me a choice of correction.

You might have this too .. tho I need to try to find out out how I have this.

I could be a while .. ?

[mint]

Thank you for your help, Sue.  But don't spend too much time on this.  I can always revert to the programme I referred to.  With that I only need to drag it to where I want the letter to go and, miraculously, it seems to come in the right typeface!

 

[cajal]

On 25th Augst Archant announced that it had reached an

agreement with London-based Rcapital Partners, which will take a 90pc

stake in the business. It is proposed that the restructured Pension Protection Fund will take a 10pc stake in the company.

However, two of Archant’s holding companies, Archant Limited and Archant

Community Media Holdings Limited,  will be placed into administration as

a result of the move.

Archant Community Media Limited, the group’s trading company and employer of its staff, will not be affected.

The company executive chairman, Simon Bax, said the business “will continue to operate as normal” as a result of the move. Archant will not be renewing their leases on at least 5 regional sites.

Shareholders investments have been completely wiped out

Rcapital were full of the expected media and refinancing  jargon using all the expected terminology - innovation - transformation - Archant will emerge from this challenging period as a stronger business etc.

The forum, of which we are members, is a part of 'Complete France' a term to cover all of Archant's french related magazines, exhibitions and digital services. Complete France, in turn, is a section of 'France Magazines' which is a sub- section of Special Interest magazines which is a sub-section of Archant's magazine portfolio which is a sub-section of Archant Hub which hosts 140 news brands. 

As to the forum's stature and relevance within the whole of Archant's enterprises, I would rate us in comparison to that of a dimple, on a pimple, on a flea's left boll.ock.

What does the  future of the forum itself hold?  It seems to have been in a state of demise for a few years now and it would appear to be already 8 bars into its' swansong without any input from Archant's misfortunes. Whether more activity or ad click thr'us, as has been suggested, will be enough to stave off the bailiffs can only remain to be seen.

[nomoss]

[quote user="mint"]Wooly, don't be cruel; I don't know how to put a circumflex on the "a"[:(]

[/quote]

My solution is to use a Spanish keyboard. It is QWERTY, but has all the accents for Spanish and French, plus Ñ and Ç.

I bought a couple a few years back, so have a spare[:D]

[Beckett]

[quote user="nomoss"][quote user="mint"]Wooly, don't be cruel; I don't know how to put a circumflex on the "a"[:(]

[/quote]

My solution is to use a Spanish keyboard. It is QWERTY, but has all the accents for Spanish and French, plus Ñ and Ç.

I bought a couple a few years back, so have a spare[:D]

[/quote]

How does that work, Nomoss? Do you have to use a combination of keystrokes? I can remember some of the Alt-codes but not all of them. It would be great if someone would develop a keyboard like the soft keyboards you get on smartphones and tablets.

[nomoss]

[quote user="Beckett"][quote user="nomoss"][quote user="mint"]Wooly, don't be cruel; I don't know how to put a circumflex on the "a"[:(]

[/quote]

My solution is to use a Spanish keyboard. It is QWERTY, but has all the accents for Spanish and French, plus Ñ and Ç.

I bought a couple a few years back, so have a spare[:D]

[/quote]

How does that work, Nomoss? Do you have to use a combination of keystrokes? I can remember some of the Alt-codes but not all of them. It would be great if someone would develop a keyboard like the soft keyboards you get on smartphones and tablets.[/quote]

It's weird how the quote works for your post when it is garbled on my view of it.

Anyway, a Spanish keyboard has the same layout of letters as a UK one, although most of the other functions are distributed differently, but there are none missing that I usually need, except a £ sign, for which I have to use Alt+156. It looks like THIS

I have always installed Windows with keyboard options of : English (United States), US keyboard; English (United Kingdom), UK keyboard; and English (United Kingdom), Spanish keyboard.

I can toggle between the 3 choices by using the Windows key together with the space bar, and the current selection is shown at the bottom right of the screen (Systray?). I occasionally change the keyboard setting accidentally, but notice this as soon as I get an incorrect symbol, and it's easy to reset again.

The choices can be found in Settings by searching for keyboard language, but I've never done this, as I made the choices each time I made a new Windows install.

We lived in Spain for before moving to France, so brought with us the keyboards were used to.

[suein56]

mint wrote the following post at 02 Sep 2020 19:38:

Sue, what about the oe together as in coeur? And the 2 dots as in Citroen?

The umlaut ¨ you can get by quickly pressing the 'shift/caps' key and the umlaut key (just above ^ on the same key) at the same time, let go, followed by the letter you want to use the symbol with ..

so o .. shift/umlaut/followed by o .. ö

u .. ü etc

Still looking for the oe and ae symbols.

[Beckett]

Weird about teh quotes.

Thanks - I didn't know the trick with Win-spacebar, but then I've only just learned Win-L to lock it :)

[Gardian]

Returning to the original post, it needs somebody (Hoddy seems the obvious person) to ask whichever bit of Archant we’re talking about, where things go from here.

Will everybody wake up one morning and find that the Forum no longer exists?

What, if any, action do members need to take?

[Beckett]

Good point.

I would be happy to share a gmail address created for that purpose on this site so that we could stay in touch - or at least, not disappear - and that may be something others might do. Maybe someone could keep a list? I'd volunteer but I'm not the most prolific poster and none of you knows me.

Realistically, if this one sinks, we'd probably join (or use, if we'd already joined) one of the others. Though perhaps not the one run by albf's bezzies...

[Lehaut]

The motorbike forum for France that I was a member of also closed. They started their own group on Facebook, invite only, which a few people moved too.

Several did not due to not liking Facebook on principle and the fact that you use your real (!) name.

IMO it is useful, but not the same a this type of forum.

[nomoss]

[quote user="Lehaut"] .............. Several did not due to not liking Facebook on principle and the fact that you use your real (!) name.

IMO it is useful, but not the same a this type of forum.[/quote]

It's not necessary to use one's real name on Facebook. I did so when I first joined, just to keep in touch with family, but changed it later to a fictitious one.

I rarely use it, and agree that it can't really replace the organised system of a forum.

[NickP]

I use Facebook, Lehaut wrote "the fact that you use your real (!) name", well, all I can say is: if that is so, some peoples parents had a strange sense of humour. ??

As for usefulness, it depends on why you use it, there's lots of "Anglo/French" sites, plus ones for all sorts of genuine interests, my main interest is Films and the ability to keep up with many of my former colleagues who I worked with in that industry. You just have to keep a tight reign on your privacy, like in any internet situation. I like this forum as it's small, and apart from a couple of people, friendly and cosy, long may it stay.

[Le martin-pêcheur]

Hi,

for œ hold down your Alt key and type 0156 on the numeric pad. We had to learn that one last year when we moved to Avenue Richard Cœur de Lion..............

[suein56]

Tony & Sue wrote the following post at 04 Sep 2020 14:39:

Hi,

for œ hold down your Alt key and type 0156 on the numeric pad. We had ro learn that one last year when we moved to Avenue Richard Cœur de Lion ..........

Brilliant .. that works, even on a laptop .. so that now completes the solving of Mint's accent/orthographic problems.

Yay ???

[Beckett]

œ

I have a presence on facebook, and belong to a number of France-related groups, but I wouldn't dream of giving them my real name or date of birth. The groups can be useful but - maybe it's facebook - there seems to be a lot of nonsense and waffle too.

[mint]

[quote user="suein56"]Tony & Sue wrote the following post at 04 Sep 2020 14:39:

Hi,

for œ hold down your Alt key and type 0156 on the numeric pad. We had ro learn that one last year when we moved to Avenue Richard Cœur de Lion ..........

Brilliant .. that works, even on a laptop .. so that now completes the solving of Mint's accent/orthographic problems.

Yay ???[/quote]

Il est temps de récolter le maÏs et cela réjouira le cœur des agriculteurs........oh, oh, try as I might, I can't get a small (lower case i) only a capital I.....

Also tried it with an e as I have 2 friends called Joelle but also only got a capital E and not a small e!

BTW the maize is not yet ready for harvesting and so I don't know whether the farmers' hearts are rejoicing or not.  Just wrote that to try out the accents[;-)]

The œ works a treat, however.

Any further suggestions, STP, Sue?

[suein56]

mint wrote the following post at 02 Sep 2020 19:38:

Sue, what about the oe together as in coeur? And the 2 dots as in Citroen?

Recap :

The umlaut ¨ you can get by quickly pressing the 'shift/caps' key and the umlaut key (just above ^ on the same key) at the same time, let go, followed by the letter you want to use the symbol with ..

so o .. shift/umlaut/followed by o .. ö

u .. ü etc

New version :

Ah .. what I have discovered is that to be able to write in lower case .. you mustn't hold the shift key down too long, whilst making a quick jab at the ¨ , LET GO OF BOTH, then click on whichever letter which requires the umlaut.

If you hold both the shift key and the ¨ down together with the u at the same time for a while then the upper case Ü appears.

It takes a bit of practice .. persevere

So all three together = capital with umlaut

Shift/ ¨ let both go then input letter = lower case with umlaut.

ü ü Ü Ü ü ü Ü Ü

[mint]

ë ï ë ï ö ö ü ü........yeah, I've got it......SEE?

But, it's actually very stress-inducing and I hope I don't have too many occasions for using it[:-))]

Thank you, Sue.  I love you, Sue[:D]

[Judith-aka-Judith]

It was on this forum that I was given the tips for keyboarding the accents on a MAC .. and I am still using them!  Tablets are easier, they are inbuilt.

[Hereford]

I have a French Canadian*  keyboard (by choice) - accents done easily é (single key), â or ç (two keys) so much easier for typing in French, except it does not have a euro sign...

* qwerty with accents added. The Canadians have several keyboards to choose from.

Previously I chose the accented letter I needed from "insert a symbol" - as I could never remember the codes. Euro sign still done that way when I type on my laptop - but not this website!!

[woolybanana]

The days of battling it out with Ricky Rocket and Dick Smith are long gone, perhaps as well, but we did have some fun late at night and some battles with mods.

[EuroTr@sh]

Before I switched to a French keyboard I used to swear by Lexibar. I don't know if that even still exists? People kept pooh poohing Lexibar and telling me I should learn this that and the other key sequence, but I didn't see the point when you could keep Lexibar at the side of your screen all the time and just click on a character when you needed it, and no need to waste braincells trying to remember all that stuff.

EDIT Yes apparently you can still download it

https://www.lexicool.com/lexibar_french_special_keyboard_characters.asp?IL=1

[cajal]

Hhmm. It would seem Mint is not alone in her struggle with keyboard strokes.