RE: [MiNT] vcons keyboard maps

[Jo-Even.Skarstein@gjensidige.no]

> Having just made a cable to connect my Swedish keyboard, I realized
> that keyboard mapping is TOS-dependant, so I made myself a new one
> using Clocky's configuration tool.  Two problems arrised:
> 
> 1) vconsd doesn't translate the new keymap, nor the 8-characters.
> 
> Q: Does vconsd translate only german vowels?  If not, why won't
>    my remapped keyboard correctly be supported in vconsd?

Strange... I have a Swedish keyboard myself (try getting a Norwegian
TT-keyboard...) and have no problems with vconsd and Clocky.

> 2) Alt-Keys are not supported by Clocky nor vconsd, even though the
>    Swedish keyboard (among others) use the Alt key to access extra
>    characters.

This is a TOS-issue. If you use a UK/US (or Canadian, if it exists) TOS you
won't get these ALT-keys. On the Falcon I have to select the German keymap
(in NV-RAM) to get these working.

> 3) Is there any way to support ISO-8859-1 remapping in vconsd _and_
>    TosWinII, in a unified and predictable way that would match results
>    obtained through normal GEM apps?

In TosWinII 2.4 you can select translation-tables for in- and outgoing
characters for each window. 
This means that you can use any Atari-mapped font and still have 8859-1
support, or you can use a dedicated 8859-1 font. Neither of these will
affect the rest of the system or other apps.

You can also use a 8859-1 VDI-font and remap your keyboard, but this is - to
put it mildly - not a very good idea. Unless you like strange characters
popping up in various dialogs ofcourse. It will also make it very difficult
to read stuff written by other Atarians.

> Note:  the remapped keys and deadkeys are correctly recognized by
> normal GEM applications (e.g. qed), so this _has_ to be a vconsd
> and TosWinII problem.

I don't understand exactly what your vcons-problem is, but I assure you -
TosWinII 2.4 has no such problems unless your keyboard is mapped to a
non-Atari font. TosWinII 2.4 use a very simple scheme to support different
charmaps:

1. It will (optionally) convert all incoming characters from Atari to the
selected char-map using translation-tables. This means that while you use
your ordinary Atari-keymap, TosWin will send 8859-1 (currently, more will be
supported if anybody bothers to create tables) to the process attached to
the terminal.

2. If you use a 8859-1 font in this window, nothing else needs to be done,
atleast as long as your attached process knows what charset to use...

3. If you use a normal Atari font, TosWin will (optionally) convert from the
specified charmap to Atari charmap before the characters are displayed.

Jo Even Skarstein