Re: Switching non-English keyboard layouts and using Emacs shortcuts

[Richard Wordingham <richard.wordingham@ntlworld.com>]

On Wed, 13 May 2015 09:37:22 +0200
"Gian Uberto Lauri" <saint@eng.it>  wrote:

> 2) use custom layout with a special sequence that changes the layout
>    on the fly without using the setxkbmap command explicitly. I should
>    ask my wife how to do this - she did it when she studied Arabic and
>    Turkish;

In many X implementations one can combine up to 4 keyboards and choose
commands to cycle through them.  I still find it awkward to bracket
each Emacs command or shortcut by cycling commands. 

> 3) use an Emacs input method (tamil-inscript or tamil-itrans)

> I think that 2) is a bit 'heaveier' than 3) as for Emacs commands, but
> 2) is much better than 3) for entering a long text.

How is (2) better than (3) for long text?  Are you saying the input
methods are too slow? I don't see any such problem for methods with one
(modified) keystroke = one input character, which is the X paradigm.
(X does exhort programs to support a specific set of dead keys.)

Richard.