Re: Loadable keyboards

[stehlik@cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz (Petr Stehlik)]

On Sun, 21 Jun 1998 11:55:22 +0200, Jo Even Skarstein wrote:

JES>> But I think the Alt keys are not needed at all. Do they exist on
JES>> English/American keyboards? I think they're on German and similar
JES>> keyboards where they needed to put some special national chars on
JES>> keyboards and they were missing free keys. I think the real solution is
JES>> to use dead keys or two different keyboards (one for programmers with
JES>
JES>I totally disagree with you on this one. Here in Norway the ALT-key is
JES>used like the AltGr-key on PC's

I am sorry I didn't know how Alt keys are used in other countries. Czech
font defines 15 pairs of additional characters and the dead-keys were
always used on mechanical writers (or typing machines or whatever the
name of the machine is). All computers and operating system use this
dead key for typing Czech chars. The Alt key is not used at all.

JES>inconvenient. I suggest to go the other way, extend bios/gemdos to
JES>handle keytables for alt/shift+alt/caps+alt as well. This should be
JES>quite easy to do in Clocky as well.

Yes, I will do that.

JES>the Swedes and Germans does it like this as well. Dead-keys are fine
JES>for odd and rarely-used characters, but having []{}@~| on dead-keys or
JES>a separate keymap would be *very* inconvenient.

This is the whole point in having two different keyboard mapping in
Clocky - the first I call "programmer's" and the second "national"
mapping. The first one has defined all []{} and similar often used chars
on easily accessible keys around the <Return> key. For typing Czech
chars in "programmer's" mode I use dead keys (because I type them very
rarely, in comments only and I don't comment my code too often :). The
"national" mapping is used for typing letters or documentation etc.
There the national chars are mapped instead of numbers and the keys
around <Return> key. This fits my needs well.

But I agree the Alt-keys are handy, too. If there's such nice way of
defining them (I thought they were hardcoded) and TOS supports that,
Clocky will allow editing them and will support that, too.

Petr
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