Re: Some developement questions

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin@fastmail.fm> writes:

> On 07/09/2018 23:27 +0200, hw wrote:
>
>> 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 may well not be able to read the letters, but the layout is
> structured like the US layout - lowercase and uppercase letters, digits
> and some punctuation.  In that sense it is "simpler" than levels of
> alterations in German layout (at least to me :-)

That gives you the advantage of having such a layout :)

>>>>> 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.
>>> [...]
> Have you tried Emacs input methods I wrote about?  My impression is that
> for any non-US script it should be convenient to use input methods.  It
> might be the case that I'm wrong and people in Germany don't switch
> between layouts, and do everything in default German layout.  But, say,
> for Russian that is simply not possible, because the whole keyboard is
> taken by Cyrillic alphabet.
>
> Of course we have OS-level switch, but I don't use that in Emacs because
> other keys break (but they remain functional with input method turned
> on).  I use OS-level layout switch only in other apps.

I need to read about input methods first.  All the keys and characters
are there plus a few, so we don't switch between layouts.  Some of the
characters are more difficult to reach than on the US layout.

It might be helpful to switch layouts for programming.  That would
involve to create two xmodmaps for each keyboard and finding a way to
switch.  Since the keys are physically not the same on all boards, that
can get confusing.