Re: APL mode

[Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Stefan Monnier writes:
>
>  > While I agree that it might sounds unEmacsish, key-sequences aren't
>  > that bad compared to key-chords.
>
> Not in my experience ... but I only use key-sequence-based input
> methods for Spanish (<5% non-ASCII characters) and Japanese (80% of
> characters requires multiple keystrokes no matter what input method
> you use, and in the very popular "romanized phonetic" methods, all
> characters do).
>
> I cannot say I'd not be unhappy if the ratio got to 50% or so.
>
> Steve

For the specific case at hand (apl-input):

I think that we have got (thanks David) to a solution.
$ setxkbmap -layout "us,apl" -variant ",sax" -option "grp:switch"
gives exactly (as far as I can tell) Juergen's solution -- a
chord-based one using alt -- so not nice for emacs users
With
$ setxkbmap -layout "us,apl" -variant ",sax" -option "grp:rswitch"
lalt works as before in emacs and ralt switches to apl layout

With
$ setxkbmap -layout "us,apl" -variant ",sax" -option "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
we can have a sequence based one -- alt-shift switching to apl and back

For the more general discussion: Is a key-seq preferable or a chord:
My general preference is to type as little as possible :-)
Combine that with the fact that a chord is bit more work than a single
key and a bit less than 2, we have:
single-key better than chord better than sequence

Clearly if we had to type-in ALLCAPS the capslock would be good.
Since mostly we never use allcaps, shift is better.

The same principle applies here: if I need to keep on giving some
input-method herald like '\' I would much rather give it once.

If one would look at typical APL code
eg http://aplwiki.com/FinnAplIdiomLibrary
one would quickly see why!

Rusi
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