Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[LENNART BORGMAN]

----- Original Message -----
From: Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2005 11:34 am
Subject: AltGr finger twisters documented?

> After an exchange of comments on the Emacs wiki, that left me 
> wondering...
> Is there any place in the Emacs documentation that explains that you
> *can* type C-M-@, C-@, C-M-\, C-\ and C-] on an AltGr-challenged
> keyboard, *provided* that you use the right order, i.e., AltGr, right
> Ctrl, and then the modified key?
> 
> For example, on my Spanish keyboard:
> 
>   C-M-@ => AltGr RCtrl Alt 2
>   C-@   => AltGr RCtrl 2
>   C-M-\ => AltGr RCtrl Alt º
>   C-\   => AltGr RCtrl º
>   C-]   => AltGr RCtrl +
> 
> It is non-obvious: it doesn't work if you press other key before
> AltGr, or if you use left control.

Wow, I had not the slightest idea! And I have complained and asked about issues related to this ... - maybe I was to unclear? I looked (again) in (emacs) Info but could not find much about AltGr.

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 7/5/05, LENNART BORGMAN <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se> wrote:

> Wow, I had not the slightest idea!

Does it work for you? Are you using Windows ?(I think the answer to
that last is YES :)

> And I have complained and asked about issues related to this ... - maybe > I was to unclear?

Maybe I didn't see your messages, because I've known for a long time
that I could only get C-] and friends using the right control key.

-- 
                    /L/e/k/t/u

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[Jason Rumney]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:

>Maybe I didn't see your messages, because I've known for a long time
>that I could only get C-] and friends using the right control key.
>  
>
Does the variable w32-recognize-altgr affect this?

I am not sure whether setting that variable to nil will prevent real 
AltGr keys working, or just the simulated version for keyboards without 
an AltGr key. If the latter, then I wonder if t is the appropriate 
default for this variable.

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[Lennart Borgman]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:

>On 7/5/05, LENNART BORGMAN <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Wow, I had not the slightest idea!
>>    
>>
>
>Does it work for you? Are you using Windows ?(I think the answer to
>that last is YES :)
>  
>
Yes, it works. And, yes w2k. I have tested three keyboards now.

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[Lennart Borgman]

Jason Rumney wrote:

> Juanma Barranquero wrote:
>
>> Maybe I didn't see your messages, because I've known for a long time
>> that I could only get C-] and friends using the right control key.
>>  
>>
> Does the variable w32-recognize-altgr affect this?
>
> I am not sure whether setting that variable to nil will prevent real 
> AltGr keys working, or just the simulated version for keyboards 
> without an AltGr key. If the latter, then I wonder if t is the 
> appropriate default for this variable. 

Yes, it surely changes things. I can for example not type \ at all if I 
set this to nil. So setting this to nil gives me a completely new 
keyboard layout which I do not think is useful at all.

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented?

[Juanma Barranquero]

> Yes, it surely changes things. I can for example not type \ at all if I
> set this to nil. So setting this to nil gives me a completely new
> keyboard layout which I do not think is useful at all.

Exactly. With `w32-recognize-altgr' set to nil there's no way I can
type C-\, because there's no way I can type \ directly.

-- 
                    /L/e/k/t/u

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented? - bug in keyboard handling?

[Lennart Borgman]

Juanma Barranquero wrote:

>>Yes, it surely changes things. I can for example not type \ at all if I
>>set this to nil. So setting this to nil gives me a completely new
>>keyboard layout which I do not think is useful at all.
>>    
>>
>
>Exactly. With `w32-recognize-altgr' set to nil there's no way I can
>type C-\, because there's no way I can type \ directly.
>
I am starting to think I see some bugs here. One, rathter trivial bug, 
concerns the documentation. It says

    w32-recognize-altgr's value is t

    Recognize right-alt and left-ctrl as AltGr.
    When nil, the right-alt and left-ctrl key combination is
    interpreted normally.

    Defined in `C source code'.

I can not see that left-ctrl works as AltGr. That is good, I would not 
want it to, but the doc string should be changed I believe.

The other, more serious thing, is that different keyboards seems to 
behave differently. They are not supposed to do that I guess. Or am I 
wrong for some reason?

Another serious problem, probably related to this, is that some key 
combinations, like C-@ are very hard or even impossible to type.

Maybe all this just relates to w32? Anyway it would be very good if it 
was fixed before release!

Re: AltGr finger twisters documented? - bug in keyboard handling?

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 7/5/05, Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se> wrote:
> Juanma Barranquero wrote:
> 
> >Exactly. With `w32-recognize-altgr' set to nil there's no way I can
> >type C-\, because there's no way I can type \ directly.

As I've just said in another message, I was wrong on this account. I
can type \ as LCtrl-AltGr-º

>     w32-recognize-altgr's value is t
> 
>     Recognize right-alt and left-ctrl as AltGr.
>     When nil, the right-alt and left-ctrl key combination is
>     interpreted normally.

> I can not see that left-ctrl works as AltGr. That is good, I would not
> want it to, but the doc string should be changed I believe.

I'm not sure the documentation is wrong, though it is less than clear.

My interpretation (but I can be very wrong, as I've not looked at the
code) is that the Windows keyboard code translates AltGr to keyboard
events LCtrl + RAlt. Emacs intercepts this behavior (at least with
w32-pass-alt-to-system set to nil, which is almost necessary to use
Emacs normally).  When w32-recognize-altgr is t, Emacs is emulating
the Windows AltGr behaviour, and that's why AltGr and LCtrl-AltGr do
the same.

> The other, more serious thing, is that different keyboards seems to
> behave differently. They are not supposed to do that I guess. Or am I
> wrong for some reason?

Really, all data seen in this thread seem to point that:

 - It is Windows specific
 - Does not depend on the keyboard
  - *Does* depend on `w32-recognize-altgr'

> Maybe all this just relates to w32? Anyway it would be very good if it
> was fixed before release!

I really don't think there's any bug to fix. Only to document.

-- 
                    /L/e/k/t/u