Re: composed characters question and suggestions for quail-cyrillic-*

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

> JL> 1. Could you also add rules to input vowels with the combining acute
> JL> accent like you did for the combining grave accent, i.e. could you add
> JL> ("a'" ["а́"]) and other vowels with the primary stress?
>
> Done.  I had to remove some conflicting rules.

Thanks, this is close to perfect now.  However, I noticed yet another
conflicting rule: ("u'" ?ў) ("U'" ?Ў).  Since it is У with breve,
we could use the same key tilde ~ as used by Latin input methods to
input Latin letters with breve: ("u~" ?ў) ("U~" ?Ў).

> JL> 2. There are now two conflicting rules: ("E`" ["Ѐ"]) and ("E`" ?Э).
>
> Moved Э to @@ (since э was on @ already).

It is too bad to drop ("e'" ?э) since it is a frequently used letter.
I propose to add a rule ("e\\" ?э) because `э' is named REVERSED E,
and REVERSE SOLIDUS `\' has similar mnemonics.

> JL> 3. I just realized that we could leave the rule ("'" ?ь), because
> JL> it has no conflict with ("a'" ["а́"]).  The letter `ь' is never used
> JL> after a vowel.
>
> Done, and '' is also back to Ь.  x/X again input Cyrillic х/Х.

Thanks, it is important to keep mappings backward-compatible if possible.

> JL> 4. Please swap the mappings between ("/``" ?”) and ("/''" ?“),
> JL> and also between ("/'" ?‘) and ("/`" ?’), because usually backquotes
> JL> are used for left quotation marks, and apostrophes are used for right
> JL> quotation marks.
>
> OK.  Please check my work, I did my best to proofread the rules.

Everything seems correct now.

> JL> I tried the patch that Handa-san submitted in 2007, and it works well
> JL> (with only one change of removing unnecessary `nreverse').  So I think
> JL> we should now design a good UI to use multiple input method support.
>
> I think the variable default-input-method should accept a list with
> implied priority (first is highest) or a function (returning a list or a
> string), and DTRT.

I agree that this is the most reasonable way to implement this feature.
I only have doubts about backward-compatibility if it might break some
existing code.

> C-u C-\ should only enable the first method in the list.
> C-u 2 C-\ should enable the first two methods.
> C-\ enables all the methods in the chain.

I think there is no need in such complexity since in the minibuffer
after typing C-\ you can select multiple input methods.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/