Re: Some developement questions

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin@fastmail.fm> writes:

> On 07/09/2018 09:18 +0200, hw wrote:
>
>> Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin@fastmail.fm> writes:
>>
>> I've never used a Russian one.  That might make a nice collectors item
>> :)
>
> Believe me, there's really nothing special about it.  We usually switch
> between English and Cyrillic layout.  All Cyrillic letters are put on
> the keyboard directly, with no AltGr or anything like that.  If you
> enable "russian-computer" input method in Emacs, you'll get the same as
> we have on Russian keyboards.

Well, I don't know how to read these letters while you see them all
around all the time, so it's not special for you.

>>> You should have 2 Ctrl's and 2 Alt's (one of which could be AltGr) on a
>>> German keyboard, so you should be in same situations as other users.
>>
>> AltGr is not an Alt key.  There is only *one* Alt key on German
>> keyboards, and it's on the left side.
> [...]
>
> Yes, I see from the article that you have that additional (third) level
> of alteration, besides normal keys and shifted keys.

We have a few characters for which there are no keys available, so
someone invented AltGr to make them available.  The result is that
symbols easy to reach on US keyboards are difficult to reach because the
keys that are easy to reach carry the additional characters, and the
symbols are only reachable with AltGr.

That was really stupid; they should just have added a couple more keys
instead.

> I see three German input methods in Emacs (`C-h I g e r TAB TAB'):
> german, german-prefix, german-postfix.  Are they not enought for a
> typical usage?  If not, then what do other German users here use?

I have no idea, I never picked an input method and never saw a need to
do that, so I don't know about them.

> As for Alt's, at least you have one normal Alt.  I have a similar
> problem on Macbook, where we have two Command keys, and only one Ctrl.
> I swapped them on OS level.  I also swapped resulting Ctrl with Alt, so
> I have this: COMMAND CTRL ALT SPACE ALT CTRL without any fancy Emacs
> settings.  Not all users actually use right Alt and Ctrl, but I do, so
> it's important for me to have symmetric keys to the right of spacebar.

Macs are most awful, they didn't even get the keyboard right ...

I usually make a few changes, like turning CapsLock into Ctrl, replacing
the comma on the keypad with a dot, putting / on the tilde key where, on
most keyboards, the * is, and a second Alt key on the useless key on the
right side wich is usually between AltGr and Ctrl.  So I have a map for
every keyboard I have.

I just wish I had a keyboard with real 122 keys all outemu switches.  It
doesn't get any better than those.