ranson@crcge1.UUCP (D. Ranson CNET) (08/05/87)
Apple Computer has issued a list of guidelines that allow applications to
be easily adapted to foreign countries. Living in France and having used
French Mac keyboards for 3 years now, I would like to add a few items to this
list:
- Don't use anything but uppercase letter for keyboard menu-equivalents.
Most other combinations can cause problems. Command-number cannot be used,
because on some keyboards, numbers are shifted (thus triggering FKEYs).
Even the universal Command-. will not work in most versions of the French
System file.
- Don't use "accent" keys (`, ^, ~, etc) for anything but typing words in.
On French keyboards, they are DEAD keys. For instance, to switch the display
under MacsBug, I must press ` twice.
- Don't use the option key for anything but its standard use. On French
keyboards, it is needed to send characters such as {}[].
- One special remark for communications software developpers: US ASCII is
not universal. You should check MacTerminal to see how they allow to switch
character sets (it is rumored that RedRyder10.0 will do that).
'hope that helps you sell more software here in Europe.
Daniel Ranson.straka@ihlpf.ATT.COM (Straka) (08/07/87)
In article <2771@crcge1.UUCP> ranson@crcge1.UUCP writes: > > Apple Computer has issued a list of guidelines that allow applications to >be easily adapted to foreign countries. Living in France and having used >French Mac keyboards for 3 years now, I would like to add a few items to this >list: > >- Don't use "accent" keys (`, ^, ~, etc) for anything but typing words in. >On French keyboards, they are DEAD keys. For instance, to switch the display >under MacsBug, I must press ` twice. How will A/UX on the Mac II work with these restrictions? For example, the UNIX shell commonly uses the ` and ~ keys for important purposes. Or will clover or opt-clover keys need to be used to dummy-up these keys? -- Rich Straka ihnp4!ihlpf!straka Advice for the day: "MSDOS - just say no."
jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) (08/07/87)
I appreciate the advice. However, I'd like to disagree with
one point. I like the use of Command-number to select windows.
Since this is strictly an optional shortcut, I guess the software
might check for the French or Italian problem and either not offer the
equivalents, or use the symbols on the top line that have the same keycaps
as the numbers.
Actually, this would be real easy to do using KeyTrans in System 4.1.
The keycodes for 1-0 are the same on all keyboards, so you could
just pass them out and see what digit (in US) or special character
(france) you get back, then use this to get the menu equivalents.
Of course, if you have a French version, you can easily have someone
REdit and put those keys into the menus (which would have to be translated
anyway) Are any of these characters dead keys?
--
Joel West (c/o UCSD)
Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu
or ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel joel@palomar.cts.comranson@crcge1.UUCP (D. Ranson CNET) (08/10/87)
In article <3624@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>, jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) writes: > I appreciate the advice. However, I'd like to disagree with > one point. I like the use of Command-number to select windows. > Since this is strictly an optional shortcut, I guess the software > might check for the French or Italian problem and either not offer the > equivalents, or use the symbols on the top line that have the same keycaps > as the numbers. > [ Deleted stuff here] > -- > Joel West (c/o UCSD) > Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA 92083 > {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu > or ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel joel@palomar.cts.com Sorry, but this won't work either. On the French keyboard, some unshifted "number keys" are special characters with diacritical marks. E.g. unshifted-2 is "e with acute accent". If you give this to MenuKey, the diacritical mark is ignored, and you get the same as with cmd-E. Let me add another example of something that does not work properly. I use More1.1. Cmd-period is a menu shortcut (that is probably fed into MenuKey). But the software first checks for the shift key in the event record, and executes a totally different command when the shift key is down. As the period key is uppercase on my keyboard, you can guess that one of the commands does not work... To summarize this, I'll say that unless you can test all Mac keyboards that will ever be built, only cmd-uppercaseletter combinations are safe. Daniel Ranson ...!seismo!mcvax!{crcge1 , cnetlu}!ranson