Re: thoughts on interaction of key bindings and input methods (was Re: wish: right alt/meta to switch keyboard layout while pressed)

[Paul Pogonyshev <pogonyshev@gmx.net>]

Ben Wing wrote:
> it seems that we want to have some notion of "default" layout.  in my 
> case, i want the default layout to be us, no matter what the physical 
> layout, but in your case you don't want things changing just because you 
> temporarily switched the layout to russian.  but i don't know if there 
> is an easy solution for both cases.

There must be a misunderstanding.  I'd like the keys (with modifiers) work
as if the current layout was English (US), no matter what the current
layout is.  Without modifiers, they would of course insert the
corresponding character based on the current layout.  Seems like we speak
of the same thing in different words, or, alternatively, I misunderstood
you this time :)

In fact, the internal Emacs input methods do just what I described.  I
just checked that.  As it was mentioned here, in German layout keys for
`z' and `y' are swapped relatively to the English layout.  So, the key
labelled `z' on my keyboard would type `y' after `C-x RET C-\ german RET'.
However, combination `C-z' would still invoke `iconify-or-deiconify-frame',
not `yank'.

That's what I mean by physical vs. logical.  It may blurry with different
alphabets, like Cyrillic.  But with German it should be more
understandable: the key labelled `z' remains at physically the same
position no matter what layout I use.  However, with German layout, the
logical key `z' swaps with logical key `y'.

So, to finally clarify my position: I want layouts switched with external
methods (`xkb') work just like Emacs internal input methods with regard
to key bindings.

Paul