From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Juergen Sauermann Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: APL mode Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:35:48 +0200 Message-ID: <526B9B04.3080404@t-online.de> References: <2556707.G5KkrEK5zp@descartes> <2175241.EV4ttzPlpJ@descartes> <52603276.70404@harpegolden.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1382783975 398 80.91.229.3 (26 Oct 2013 10:39:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:39:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel To: Rustom Mody Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Oct 26 12:39:39 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Va1HN-0005JF-TZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:39:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34196 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Va1HN-00009F-DO for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 06:39:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40952) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Va1Dp-00089l-0Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 06:36:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Va1Dj-0007K3-53 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 06:35:56 -0400 Original-Received: from mailout08.t-online.de ([194.25.134.20]:38037) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Va1Di-0007JN-R7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 06:35:51 -0400 Original-Received: from fwd04.aul.t-online.de (fwd04.aul.t-online.de ) by mailout08.t-online.de with smtp id 1Va1Dg-0006Zm-TS; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:35:48 +0200 Original-Received: from [192.168.0.110] (rfkJLoZvwhHzcx-8dacMGUsr1Mjlpkt7V00Gkn0dLX89JbhqT4SsMPSeN9FW9jagKW@[79.235.226.29]) by fwd04.t-online.de with esmtp id 1Va1Dg-1fc8Zc0; Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:35:48 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130330 Thunderbird/17.0.5 In-Reply-To: X-ID: rfkJLoZvwhHzcx-8dacMGUsr1Mjlpkt7V00Gkn0dLX89JbhqT4SsMPSeN9FW9jagKW X-TOI-MSGID: fe34eba2-66f1-4be4-9435-c3cce145d08e X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 194.25.134.20 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 06:39:35 -0400 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:164556 Archived-At: Hi Rustom, maybe you want to reconsider your old proposal of using the AltGr key for APL and Alt for emacs. With xmodmap you can make Alt and Alt-Gr different modifiers, e.g. add Mod1 = 108 I also believe that it is important to have the same method inside and outside emacs. As a user I would be very irritated if I would need to type, for example, ESC G inside emacs and CTRL-G when running APL from a shell. Jürgen On 10/26/2013 06:38 AM, Rustom Mody wrote: > On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:10 AM, Stefan Monnier > wrote: >>> If there is something fundamentally wrong with this line please let me know >> I'm still wondering why a plain old normal well-supported quail >> input-method is not a good solution. > Obviously I know very little about quail -- so consider this as > thoughts for our comments. > > In quail you need (as far as I understand) some kind of 'herald' > character like the '\' for tex input method. > > In APL programming you need a preponderance of non ASCII characters > Some egs from the apl-keyboard in the code I attached: > > The a-key needs to send a and A and ⍺ and ⊖ > The g-key needs to send g and G and ∇ ⍒ > and so on for most of the keys. [All need to send at least 3, majority > need to send 4] > > Using a modifier key like the normal use of shift makes this palatable > Having to use a herald key means having to keep heralding -- a PITA. > > The original solution from Juergen was to use xmodmap and use alt as > the modifier key -- quite normal in the APL world. > However with Alt (=M) gone we lose M-p M-n and above all M-x which > makes emacs close to useless > > My initial attempts were to figure out xmodmap in order to add (rather > than to replace) one more modifier key. My findings: > 1. I could not make head or tail of xmodmap > 2. Even if I did it would be a very X-specific solution ie would not > work outside gnu-linux (maybe unix) systems > 3. Keyboards are inherently very variable, in particular from 'normal' > desktop to laptop > > All these things considered a low-level but inside emacs (rather than > X/OS) solution seems to be most optimal. > > Finally, my feeling is that if APL is to regain some popularity (which > it enjoyed 4-5 decades ago), a variety of input methods would be good > -- for different hardware, OSes, usage-profile, tastes. So far I can > see these possibilities: > 1. Juergen's xmodmap -- use ESC for Alt > 2. David's quail-based one > 3. Markus Triska's quail-based one (more tex-like than David's) > 4. An intermediate one which I am trying to explore > > Will be happy to hear your thoughts and experiences on this > Rusi >