From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Pogonyshev Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel,gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta Subject: Re: thoughts on interaction of key bindings and input methods (was Re: wish: right alt/meta to switch keyboard layout while pressed ) Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 13:29:39 +0200 Message-ID: <200511271329.39650.pogonyshev@gmx.net> References: <200511222150.54248.pogonyshev@gmx.net> <200511270101.56195.pogonyshev@gmx.net> <43891060.2070405@666.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1133108653 21367 80.91.229.2 (27 Nov 2005 16:24:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2005 16:24:13 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Aidan Kehoe , XEmacs Beta , Ben Wing Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Nov 27 17:24:09 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EgPIE-0005rm-5W for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 17:22:22 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EgPID-0002cf-7V for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 11:22:21 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EgOrr-0002Xc-Ho for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:55:08 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EgOrl-0002Wg-RO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:55:04 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EgOrl-0002Wa-H1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:55:01 -0500 Original-Received: from [213.165.64.20] (helo=mail.gmx.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.34) id 1EgOrk-0008M1-VN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:55:01 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 27 Nov 2005 15:54:57 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (EHLO [194.158.219.167]) [194.158.219.167] by mail.gmx.net (mp025) with SMTP; 27 Nov 2005 16:54:57 +0100 X-Authenticated: #16844820 Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 In-Reply-To: <43891060.2070405@666.com> Content-Disposition: inline X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:46652 gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta:21239 Archived-At: Ben Wing wrote: > now, from personal experience: i have had many times when i've been in > foreign countries and had to log on to the internet. typically, the > punctuation is in a completely different place. i always switched to us > layout, and found it nearly impossible to use any other layouts. i > *definitely* would expect in such a case that keyboard shortcuts > involving punctuation should follow the logical, not physical, layout -- > but with the physical layout as a backup, so when i temporarily switch > to russian, i can still type C-x. (with alphabetic keys, it is > semi-feasible to search the keyboard in front of me to find the keys, > but this is just impossible for punctuation.) I fail to see while it is impossible for punctuation, but here is my reasoning. (I'm constantly referring to Russian layout since that's what I use; I agree I'm somewhat biased because of this, since Russian uses a different alphabet.) Let's say we have punctuation following the logical layout, while the alphabetical key bindings remain on physically the same keys. I won't stress the consistency objection here, just the practical consequences for a Russian layout users (must also apply to any layout with an alphabet with more than 26 letters.) According to your proposal, key binding for command `M-.' (find-tag) will be on logical `M-.' in Russian layout, physically corresponding to English `M-/'. Now, many variants of the Russian layout (including Emacs' `russian-computer') don't have any way to type in the slash except by using the keypad. So, the command `dabbrev-expand' (M-/) becomes unavailable in Russian layout: there is no way to type that logically. And if you type that as-in-English, it invokes `find-tag', according to your proposal. This is just one example. There are certainly more, involving such key combinations like `M-^', `M-$' (which I use quite often) and others. All these cannot be typed with Russian layout and their physical keys clash with placement of punctuation on the Russian layout. Physical correspondence with English layout (which, I think, is marked on all keyboards, may be wrong here) is something all layouts have in common. In all other aspects they have lots of differences, including the location of keys corresponding to punctuation characters. One not-yet-discussed possibility is to distinguish between layouts for latin alphabet-based languages and all the rest (Cyrillic, Greek, ...) Since I only regularly use Russian and English layouts, maybe someone using, say German or Swedish layouts, could comment on this. Paul