ahall@vision.UUCP (Andy Hall) (09/03/90)
On european keyboards some keys have an alternate character associated with
them in addition to the normal shifted characters. This is normally accessed
via an alt key to the right of the spacebar often labelled "Alt Gr". For
instance on a Danish PC keyboard the 7 key generates:
unmodified 7 ( seven )
shifted / ( slash )
alt gr'ed { ( left brace )
Question 1: What should an X server generate for these 3 key combinations ?
Question 2: Assuming the alt gr combination generates "XK_Alt_R down , XK_7 down
" what mechanism is an X client/server meant to use to turn this into a left
brace ? (i.e. should the Alt Gr be another modifier ? )
Question 3: Assuming the Alt Gr key is to be another modifier is there a
standard for which modifier it is ? and when will there be Xlib support for
this modifier ?
Question 4: Is there a forum discussing internationalisation to which we could
address queries of this kind ?
Thanks, Merci, Gracias, Danke, Tak
prc@erbe.se (Robert Claeson) (09/04/90)
In a recent article ahall@vision.UUCP (Andy Hall) writes: >On european keyboards some keys have an alternate character associated with >them in addition to the normal shifted characters. This is normally accessed >via an alt key to the right of the spacebar often labelled "Alt Gr". For >instance on a Danish PC keyboard the 7 key generates: > > unmodified 7 ( seven ) > shifted / ( slash ) > alt gr'ed { ( left brace ) ...which is true for many other European keyboard layouts as well. >Question 2: Assuming the alt gr combination generates "XK_Alt_R down , XK_7 down >" what mechanism is an X client/server meant to use to turn this into a left >brace ? (i.e. should the Alt Gr be another modifier ? ) Yes, it really should. I think it's time to introduce the concept of "group shift" (a la ISO IS 8884) into X. >Question 3: Assuming the Alt Gr key is to be another modifier is there a >standard for which modifier it is ? and when will there be Xlib support for >this modifier ? There's no standard for this. I asked about the same thing just a few weeks ago. Some brave vendors, like Data General, uses assigns the right Alt key to "mod2" and uses the mod2 modifier as a secondary shift. Thus, it becomes possible to enter all the characters on a Danish/Swedish/German/etc keyboard using unshifted, shifted and Alt Gr'ed key combinations. -- Robert Claeson |Reasonable mailers: rclaeson@erbe.se ERBE DATA AB | Dumb mailers: rclaeson%erbe.se@sunet.se | Perverse mailers: rclaeson%erbe.se@encore.com These opinions reflect my personal views and not those of my employer (ask him).
gildea@ALEXANDER.BBN.COM (Stephen Gildea) (09/04/90)
For generating the alternate characters on a key, you want a "group modifier," which was added to Xlib's XLookupString in Release 4. See "Xlib Changes From Release 3 to Release 4" or a copy of the Xlib book updated for Release 4. To summarize, you can attach two sets of keysyms to each key. Which to use is determined by the state of the Mode_switch key (which you may have to define; see the documentation). < Stephen Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. gildea@bbn.com Cambridge, Massachusetts "Play it once, Sam, for old time's sake."