barmar@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU (Barry Margolin) (04/30/86)
In article <384@druhi.UUCP> cosmos@druhi.UUCP (GuestRA) writes: >I just downloaded Red Ryder 8.0 to try it out. One problem I am having is >that using the Option keys as the control key doesn't seem to work right for >some control keys. For example, ^E must be typed twice to be sent to the >host. Macintosh Kermit has the same problem. The problem is that they use a keyboard-reading routine that interprets diacritical prefixes. It thinks that Option-e is the acute accent, so it waits for the next character so that it can translate it to the accented version. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
dad@mit-vax.UUCP (David Duff) (04/30/86)
In article <384@druhi.UUCP> cosmos@druhi.UUCP (GuestRA) writes: >I just downloaded Red Ryder 8.0 to try it out. One problem I am having is >that using the Option keys as the control key doesn't seem to work right for >some control keys. For example, ^E must be typed twice to be sent to the >host. This problem does not occur when using Command as the control key. >Also, a macro programmed with ^E works just fine. Other control characters >that don't work right include ^N. Any clues? Do I have something >configured wrong or is this a bug? The problem is that option-e, option-i, option-u, and option-n, are, in some sense, hard-wired to produce special symbols in combination with other characters. Someone with more knowledge of internals could probably tell you more about where this mapping takes place, but apparently it is at a pretty low level, and can not be overridden with standard keyboard mapping techniques. For example, it you want to type a letter with a sideways colon over it (umlaut, or whatever), you type option-u letter (where letter is one of {a, e, i, o, u, y}). Likewise for the little hat (caret) with option-i, or tilde with option-n. This was done to give the mac international capability, obviously. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the keyboard itself actually waits before sending the character after one of these keys. There's a partial answer, anybody got any more detail than that?
othello@tesla.UUCP (Michael Culbert) (05/01/86)
> I just downloaded Red Ryder 8.0 to try it out. One problem I am having is > that using the Option keys as the control key doesn't seem to work right for > some control keys. For example, ^E must be typed twice to be sent to the > host. This problem does not occur when using Command as the control key. > Also, a macro programmed with ^E works just fine. Other control characters > that don't work right include ^N. Any clues? Do I have something > configured wrong or is this a bug? > Thanks, > Ron Guest > ATT > ihnp4!druxj!cosmos This is not a bug -- there is a problem with a few keys due to the fact that the normal keyboard driver of the macintosh designates some of the keys as double strike keys -- eg the option e is used for speciving accents and the option n key is used for the spanish "tilde" or nenyae <-- english spelling. -Mike
saunders@batcomput (05/01/86)
In article <384@druhi.UUCP> cosmos@druhi.UUCP (GuestRA) writes: >using the Option keys as the control key doesn't seem to work right Glory, glory, to Apple, and to the wise old man who takes care of their keyboard development. This is NOT a BUG, sir, this is a FEATURE of the *wonderful* Macintosh keyboard driver. You may recall that the Mac is an "international" machine . . . so, those characters which are used to produce accents, cedillas, etc. (they're all option-key combinations, E, I, N, & U--there's a formal name for this class of character, but I forget it), are trapped, and if the next character takes one of those, the WONDERFUL keyboard driver MAGICALLY produces the correctly accented foreign character! Alas, to produce the character itself you must type it TWICE. In this way, the wise old man of Apple guaranteed that the option key would drive programmers writing communication programs crazy, since there is no way of disabling this MARVELOUS FEATURE so one can conveniently produce control characters using the (otherwise useless) option key, nor is the action of the keyboard driver properly documented (or documented at all, except for those lucky souls who possess early versions of Inside Mac, which has the story but gets it slightly wrong). The only way for the poor programmer to avoid this MOST LOVELY ***FEATURE*** is to trap the calls to the key interpreter & catch the nasty combinations before the interpreter gets 'em. As you can guess, I've spent some time on this. You might also be able to guess that I don't think much of the way this software was written (c'mon, guys, at least give us SOME WAY of disabling this kluge!). Nor do I much care for the Mac Plus keyboard, which misplaces a bunch of keys (programs written to make things convenient on the one keyboard make things very INconvenient on the other). Well, barf on Apple anyway, I bet they won't even be able to design a decent UNIX machine. Color Me Irate, kevin -- kevin eric saunders ARPA: kevin@lasspvax or kevin%lasspvax.tn.cornell.edu@cu-arpa UUCP: {ihnp4, allegra,...}!cornell!lasspvax!kevin
naftoli@aecom.UUCP (Robert N. Berlinger) (05/02/86)
> I just downloaded Red Ryder 8.0 to try it out. One problem I am having is > that using the Option keys as the control key doesn't seem to work right for > some control keys. For example, ^E must be typed twice to be sent to the > host. This problem does not occur when using Command as the control key. > Also, a macro programmed with ^E works just fine. Other control characters > that don't work right include ^N. Any clues? Do I have something > configured wrong or is this a bug? > Thanks, > Ron Guest > ATT > ihnp4!druxj!cosmos This is documented in the manual--this is due to the fact that certain characters are mapped internally by the Mac for use with diacritical characters. Using the Command key eliminates this problem, but doesn't allow you to have Command secquences for the menus. -- Robert Berlinger ...{philabs,cucard,pegasus,ihnp4,rocky2}!aecom!naftoli
jmm@pavepaws.berkeley.edu (James M. Moore) (05/04/86)
Some of us out here are absolutely delighted with the way the Mac can put diacriticals in without having to do anything too strange. Makes a huge difference when you're writing in French (or doing Russian homework that requires marked stress). Why can't you just use the option key rather than the command? James