Insert Euro symbol

Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Emacs by default provides the very convenient C-x 8 series of
keybindings.  For me, personally, it is in some cases preferable to
using input methods: I use german-prefix as an input method and have
gotten used to ' being a regular self-inserting key, so switching to
latin-1-prefix won't make me happy.  Nevertheless, I sometimes want
to write é or à or the like.  For this, C-x 8 is convenient.

Now there is sometimes the need for entering the Euro symbol.  I
suggested a C-x 8 binding for that some time ago, but people objected
that C-x 8 inserts Latin-1 characters, so people might be confused
with now inserting Latin-9 characters in some cases.

Do you think that there should be a keybinding of some sort to insert
the Euro character?  (A keybinding that is not in an input method.)

Do you think it should be a C-x 8 binding?  (Because of 8859
unification, the distinction between Latin-1 and Latin-9 are becoming
less relevant.  When Emacs uses Unicode internally, the distinction
will be irrelevant I guess.  That would be an argument in favor of
C-x 8.)

Do you think a C-x 9 series of bindings, paralleling C-x 8 but in
Latin-9 instead of Latin-1, would be useful?  (What about the poor
Latin-2 folks, though?)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Alan Shutko]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Do you think that there should be a keybinding of some sort to insert
> the Euro character?  (A keybinding that is not in an input method.)

Why shouldn't it be in the european input methods?  It seems that if
it were in german-prefix, you wouldn't have a problem.

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>
>> Do you think that there should be a keybinding of some sort to insert
>> the Euro character?  (A keybinding that is not in an input method.)
>
> Why shouldn't it be in the european input methods?  It seems that if
> it were in german-prefix, you wouldn't have a problem.

Indeed.  I had forgotten about that.  But then, we'd have to create a
version of german-prefix which inserts Latin-9 characters.  Which is
not difficult, I guess.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Karl Eichwalder]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Indeed.  I had forgotten about that.  But then, we'd have to create a
> version of german-prefix which inserts Latin-9 characters.  Which is
> not difficult, I guess.

I still wish these artificial will vanish...  As experience shows again
and again this concept is by no means userfriendly.

Let the user insert what-ever character he wants and at save time ask
him about encodings if any doubt occurs.  The ISO-8859-x families are
overlapping entities; they are not distinct from each other -- I didn't
met a single _user_ who thinks different.

-- 
ke@suse.de (work) / keichwa@gmx.net (home):              |
http://www.suse.de/~ke/                                  |      ,__o
Free Translation Project:                                |    _-\_<,
http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/             |   (*)/'(*)

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Karl Eichwalder <ke@gnu.franken.de> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>
>> Indeed.  I had forgotten about that.  But then, we'd have to create a
>> version of german-prefix which inserts Latin-9 characters.  Which is
>> not difficult, I guess.
>
> I still wish these artificial will vanish...  As experience shows again
> and again this concept is by no means userfriendly.

Please be patient.  At the moment, making a new input method for
German Latin-9 seems best.  I just switched Emacs to a Latin-9 locale
but still use german-prefix.  This means that I can use the normal
X11 method of entering ä (<compose> <a> <">) which produces a Latin-9
character, whereas the german-prefix way (<"> <a>) produces a Latin-1
character, and `C-s ä' does not find both.

Yes, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode would work around this problem.  But
I think we want something which works well even for users who have
that turned off.  (Turning unify-8859-on-decoding-mode on has the
unfortunate side-effect of changing the encoding of the Emacs
ChangeLog files.  So I guess that Emacs developers, at least, will
want to leave unify-8859-on-decoding-mode off.)

If you want to make it happen faster, help Handa-san with his Unicode
work.  Wishing is permissible, of course, but not very practical :-)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

It seems like a serious drawback that the latin-1-postfix input method
(and other similar ones) does not provide for inputting Latin-1 (or
whichever character set's) nonalphabetic characters.

Technically it would be easy to add them; the problem is to find good
sequences to use for them.  Does anyone have any ideas?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> It seems like a serious drawback that the latin-1-postfix input method
> (and other similar ones) does not provide for inputting Latin-1 (or
> whichever character set's) nonalphabetic characters.

The latin-1-postfix method allows for inserting a lot of nonletters.
There is no latin-9-postfix, but latin-9-prefix allows for inserting
the Euro sign.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding here?

Originally, I was asking for a C-x 8 sequence to insert the Euro sign
(which is not part of Latin-1, only of Latin-9), but the theme of the
thread has since changed:

Suppose I use the german-prefix input method, which allows convenient
input of ä but not é.  I don't want to use the latin-1-prefix input
method because it changes the behavior of the ' key which I don't
want.  Nevertheless, I have a friend named André and so I want to be
able to type his name correctly.  At the moment, I use C-x 8 ' e to
type the nonascii character.

C-x 8 uses an obsolete method for entering characters, so it's a good
idea to replace it with something more modern.  But, IMVHO, just
telling people to use input methods won't cut it.  For entering a
single character, I have to type C-u C-\, select the latin-1-prefix
input method, type ' e to enter the character, then type C-u C-\ to
switch back to my normal german-prefix input method.  This is
inconvenient.

While we're changing C-x 8 anyway, support could be added for entering
non-Latin-1 characters, as well.  (In particular, the Euro sign.)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

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    The latin-1-postfix method allows for inserting a lot of nonletters.

I am not sure what you mean by "a lot".  Most Latin-1 non-letters do
not seem to be included.

I started writing changes to add ways to enter some additional
characters, shown below.  But I have doubts about whether these
sequences are good ones.  They might be inconvenient.

+  ("\"\"" ?¨)
+  ("''" ?´)
+  (",," ?¸)
+  ("* " ? )  ; Non-breaking space
+  ("+_" ?±)
+  ("-*" ?­)
+  (".*" ?·)
+  ("^*" ?¯)
+  ("c*" ?©)
+  ("l*" ?£)
+  ("p*" ?¶)
+  ("r*" ?®)
+  ("s*" ?§)
+  ("x*" ?×)
+  ("X*" ?¤)
+  ("y*" ?¥)
+  ("|*" ?¦)
+  ("1*" ?¹)
+  ("2*" ?²)
+  ("3*" ?³)
+  ("2_" ?½)
+  ("4_" ?¼)
+  ("3_" ?¾)
+  ("//" ?÷)

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I started writing changes to add ways to enter some additional
> characters, shown below.  But I have doubts about whether these
> sequences are good ones.  They might be inconvenient.

A lot of them are inconvenient IMHO since they occur very frequently
e.g. in writing emails.  What do you think about having sequences of
three characters?  The first one is a kind of escape character, say,
`C-.', followed by your two-character sequences (or a one-character
sequence if that makes sense).

My comments below are only valid if you really want to add
two-character sequences.  Otherwise, X compose sequences are probably
the best.

> +  ("\"\"" ?¨)

This conflicts with many programming languages where you have to type
\\ regularly.

> +  ("''" ?´)

Ditto.

> +  (",," ?¸)

Ditto.

> +  ("* " ? )  ; Non-breaking space

Hmm, has Emacs a feature to make non-breaking spaces visible?

> +  ("+_" ?±)

I would rather use what the compose feature of X uses, namely `+-'.

> +  ("-*" ?­)

For most fonts, this is graphically the same as a normal hyphen.
Emacs should also provide a means to make them visually different.

> +  ("2_" ?½)
> +  ("4_" ?¼)
> +  ("3_" ?¾)

I don't like to have the underscore in such sequences since it means
an additional keystroke.  For my proposed three-character sequences,
a better choice would be `12', `14', and `34', respectively.

> +  ("//" ?÷)

`//' is already in use.  It produces `°'.  I *hate* this one, since
typing URLs is a real pain.  With my proposal, this could be come
`C-. o'.


    Werner

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    A lot of them are inconvenient IMHO since they occur very frequently
    e.g. in writing emails.  What do you think about having sequences of
    three characters?

That might be the best choice for these non-letters,
if Quail works well with three-letter sequences.
But these sequences shouldn't start with a control character.
Quail works on sequences of self-inserting characters.

Could you try defining some sequences and see what this is like
in practice?

I am thinking about what the sequences should look like.
Perhaps they should all start with a common pair of characters.
Perhaps `.,' is a good choice, since that sequence is rarely
used and easy to type.  `.,,' could stand for `.,'.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Werner LEMBERG]

> That might be the best choice for these non-letters,
> if Quail works well with three-letter sequences.

It does.

> Could you try defining some sequences and see what this is like
> in practice?

I suggest to use the same as with X, using the compose key.

> Perhaps they should all start with a common pair of characters.
> Perhaps `.,' is a good choice, since that sequence is rarely
> used and easy to type.  `.,,' could stand for `.,'.

Nice idea.  Perhaps `,.' is even better since this occurs less
frequent.  Currently, I'm a bit short of time to experiment with it,
but I'm quite confident that it works well.


    Werner

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    > Could you try defining some sequences and see what this is like
    > in practice?

    I suggest to use the same as with X, using the compose key.

I don't think Emacs is informed if you type the compose key.
The X server handles that.  Anyway, not every terminal has a compose key.
And if you want to use the compose key, you can do that with X,
so why does Emacs need to implement it too?

Emacs should do something else.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Werner LEMBERG]

>     I suggest to use the same as with X, using the compose key.
> 
> I don't think Emacs is informed if you type the compose key.  The X
> server handles that.  Anyway, not every terminal has a compose key.
> And if you want to use the compose key, you can do that with X, so
> why does Emacs need to implement it too?

A misunderstanding.  I meant to use the key sequences as with the X
compose key, converted to leim.


    Werner

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    A misunderstanding.  I meant to use the key sequences as with the X
    compose key, converted to leim.

If we take `.,' as a substitute for the X compose key,
the rest of the sequence could be the same I guess.
If that rest is 2 characters, the total would be 4.

It would also work to use one-character sequences
after `.,' and there would be enough characters to handle
the Latin-1 non-letters.  That might be more convenient.
How about experimenting with them?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> writes:

>> I started writing changes to add ways to enter some additional
>> characters, shown below.  But I have doubts about whether these
>> sequences are good ones.  They might be inconvenient.
>
> A lot of them are inconvenient IMHO since they occur very frequently
> e.g. in writing emails.  What do you think about having sequences of
> three characters?  The first one is a kind of escape character, say,
> `C-.', followed by your two-character sequences (or a one-character
> sequence if that makes sense).

I think if the input method makes doubled characters insert
themselves, there is not much of a problem.  For example, even if
there were a lot of sequences involving SPC, users could easily
type SPC SPC to insert a "real" space character.  (Of course, SPC was
chosen as an extreme example.  We want to stay away from SPC.  But
less-often used nonletters would be okay.  For example, how about the
@ character.  As long as @ @ inserts an @ sign, it wouldn't be
difficult for people to use.)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Werner LEMBERG]

> > A lot of them are inconvenient IMHO since they occur very
> > frequently e.g. in writing emails.  What do you think about having
> > sequences of three characters?  The first one is a kind of escape
> > character, say, `C-.', followed by your two-character sequences
> > (or a one-character sequence if that makes sense).
> 
> I think if the input method makes doubled characters insert
> themselves, there is not much of a problem.

But the combinations suggested by Richard will occur way too often.

> For example, how about the @ character.  As long as @ @ inserts an @
> sign, it wouldn't be difficult for people to use.)

Typing @ isnt' convenient at all for me due to its location on the
keyboard.


    Werner

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Stefan Monnier]

>     The latin-1-postfix method allows for inserting a lot of nonletters.
> 
> I am not sure what you mean by "a lot".  Most Latin-1 non-letters do
> not seem to be included.
> 
> I started writing changes to add ways to enter some additional
> characters, shown below.  But I have doubts about whether these
> sequences are good ones.  They might be inconvenient.

How about auto-extracting them from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose


	Stefan

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Stefan Monnier]

> Do you think a C-x 9 series of bindings, paralleling C-x 8 but in
> Latin-9 instead of Latin-1, would be useful?  (What about the poor
> Latin-2 folks, though?)

I think the answer is that there should be some way to bind
a (prefix) key to an input-method.  E.g. C-x 8 would be bound
to latin-1-prefix or something along the same lines.

I don't know how much work would be involved, tho.
Also from the C-x 8 example, it seems that just using latin-1-prefix
would not be good enough (after all, C-x 8 allows both e' and 'e
so it is more like a combination of prefix and postfix).


	Stefan

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Thu, 2 May 2002, Kai =?iso-8859-1?q?Gro=DFjohann?= wrote:

> Emacs by default provides the very convenient C-x 8 series of
> keybindings.  For me, personally, it is in some cases preferable to
> using input methods: I use german-prefix as an input method and have
> gotten used to ' being a regular self-inserting key, so switching to
> latin-1-prefix won't make me happy.  Nevertheless, I sometimes want
> to write é or à or the like.  For this, C-x 8 is convenient.

Why not augment the existing input methods to do what you find convenient 
in C-x 8, or make a new input method, if augmenting existing ones is 
impractical?

I don't think we should extend C-x 8, since it's a legacy ``input 
method'' which predates Leim.  We now have Leim and the native input 
methods provided by the various keyboards/windowing systems (like XIM, 
for example).  It doesn't sound like a good idea to have yet another, 3rd 
way of producing non-ASCII characters.  C-x 8 should be supported for 
back compatibility, but do we really want to extend it?

> Do you think that there should be a keybinding of some sort to insert
> the Euro character?  (A keybinding that is not in an input method.)

I think it should be possible to insert the Euro with an input method.  
People who don't use input methods can use the keystrokes their keyboard 
supports for that.

> When Emacs uses Unicode internally, the distinction
> will be irrelevant I guess.  That would be an argument in favor of
> C-x 8.)

You mean, you'll want C-x 8 to be able to insert any Unicode character?  
Or just some of them?  If the latter, which ones?

> Do you think a C-x 9 series of bindings, paralleling C-x 8 but in
> Latin-9 instead of Latin-1, would be useful?

If you agree that C-x 8 is deprecated, C-x 9 is a step in the wrong 
direction.

> (What about the poor Latin-2 folks, though?)

Why, C-x 10, of course ;-)

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Miles Bader]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:
> It doesn't sound like a good idea to have yet another, 3rd 
> way of producing non-ASCII characters.  C-x 8 should be supported for 
> back compatibility, but do we really want to extend it?

Yes.

It's very convenient for people who don't use a latin-x input method
normally but want to only insert a character or two.  I use it all the
time, and I'd be very annoyed if I had to fuck around with switching
input methods just to type my occasional one character.

I didn't even know that C-x 8 is defined to insert `latin-1' characters,
I just though it was a handy package for inserting common characters
from the non-ASCII latin set.  To me having it be able to insert the
euro sign sounds like a natural and useful extension.

Of course, maybe there's a better _implementation_ (maybe along the
lines that Stefan suggested), but please don't `deprecate' the
functionality -- I really like it and use it often.

> If you agree that C-x 8 is deprecated, C-x 9 is a step in the wrong 
> direction.

I agree about this, though; it would be pretty silly to have `C-x 9'
etc., because I don't think it's natural for anyone to think that way
(even if it would be somehow convenient for the implementation, though
I doubt even that's the case).

You're right that if we simply think of C-x 8 as being `insert handy
non-ASCII characters' (as indeed I do) then there's the problem of
deciding `which characters?' especially when all of unicode becomes a
possibility.  But that's not a reason to get rid of the interface, I
think, just a reason to be judicious when extending it.

-Miles
-- 
"Most attacks seem to take place at night, during a rainstorm, uphill,
 where four map sheets join."   -- Anon. British Officer in WW I

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Eli Zaretskii]

> It's very convenient for people who don't use a latin-x input method
> normally but want to only insert a character or two.

Is that because you have some other input method active?  Because
otherwise, the number of keystrokes to toggle input method, type the
character, then toggle again is the same as with C-x 8.

C-x 8 is just another input method these days.  Except that it
doesn't behave like one, and that causes confusion among users and
makes the documentation more difficult to write.

If it is a frequent problem with the Euro that people need to insert
them when they have a non-Latin input method active, perhaps we should
add the Euro to some non-Latin input methods as well.

> I didn't even know that C-x 8 is defined to insert `latin-1' characters,
> I just though it was a handy package for inserting common characters
> from the non-ASCII latin set.  To me having it be able to insert the
> euro sign sounds like a natural and useful extension.

I suspect that other characters will follow.

> please don't `deprecate' the functionality -- I really like it and
> use it often.

If there another functionality that does the same and doesn't require
more keystrokes, will you consider switching?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Miles Bader]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:
> > It's very convenient for people who don't use a latin-x input method
> > normally but want to only insert a character or two.
> 
> Is that because you have some other input method active?

Yes.  I normally use the japanese language environment, so hitting C-\
gets me the japanese input method (though I'm normally not using it in
the same buffer where I use `C-x 8'); I'd have to do something like
`C-u C-\ latin-1-prefix RET' to get latin-1 characters.

> Because otherwise, the number of keystrokes to toggle input method,
> type the character, then toggle again is the same as with C-x 8.

... however even _if_ I could just `enable an input method,' that seems
somehow ... wrong.  I _want_ to just give a prefix and get one
character, and not have to worry about turning off the input method (I'm
not entirely sure why this is, but probably because I only type isolated
latin-x characters, and so toggling a `mode' feels like the wrong thing).

> C-x 8 is just another input method these days.  Except that it
> doesn't behave like one, and that causes confusion among users and
> makes the documentation more difficult to write.

It may actually be `an input method', but that's not how I think of
it.  I think of it as being a big table of latin-x characters that I
can insert by giving a command.

> If it is a frequent problem with the Euro that people need to insert
> them when they have a non-Latin input method active, perhaps we should
> add the Euro to some non-Latin input methods as well.

As it is, `C-x 8' is orthogonal to, and can act independently of other
input methods -- and this is a _good thing_.  Getting rid of it by adding
some of it's functionality to other input methods seems like it would
simply complicate the situation and lead to more inconsistent (and
probably more buggy) behavior.  [note that I say `seems' -- maybe it's
possible to avoid this, but I can't say without seeing a plan to do so.]

Now, if you added some general way of having multiple input methods
active without lots of keystrokes (and possibly having one available as
using a `prefix' like C-x 8), then that would be useful because it would
preserve the benefits of C-x 8 while perhaps making it more general and
useful.

> If there another functionality that does the same and doesn't require
> more keystrokes, will you consider switching?

I also like the C-x 8 interface; assuming something equally handy, then
`of course' -- but `number of keystrokes' really isn't the only
important metric here (though it's nice and easy to measure).

-Miles
-- 
Occam's razor split hairs so well, I bought the whole argument!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

    Miles> "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:
    >> > It's very convenient for people who don't use a latin-x input
    >> > method normally but want to only insert a character or two.
    >> 
    >> Is that because you have some other input method active?

    Miles> Yes.  I normally use the japanese language environment,

etc.

FWIW I agree with Miles 100%.  LEIM is broken by design in the same
way that XIM is broken, that is, it assumes that input methods are
modal.

IMO, input methods should not be modal, they should be context-
sensitive.[1]  Ie, if your LANG=ja_JP.eucJP and you visit a file which
is known to be in Polish (Latin-2), you should be able to start typing
and get a Latin-2 input method.  More, if you're a Buddhist scholar
with a trilingual (Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese) document and you
overstrike a Japanese character, you should be in a Japanese input
method no matter what your most recent previous insertion used.  If
for some reason you really want to overstrike with Sanskrit, then you
explicitly invoke an input method, through a mechanism like C-x 8.

This would be really hard to implement, of course (without
telepathy.el which I hear is still totally non-functional :-).  Since
most people and most documents are monolingual, a modal input
framework is a close approximation to the context-sensitive framework
(in number-of-keystroke terms, not in annoyance terms, YMMV).  But
C-x 8 is a really important facility for making this bearable to
multilingual users.

Note that most fullfledged Japanese input methods provide both modal
aspects (is the basic input romanized phonetics or Japanese
phonetics?) but also C-x 8-like "single shifts" to menus of symbols,
radical/stroke count input, direct input of JIS codes, and even more
exotic methods.  These are only used for "rare" characters that may
not be in the IM's dictionary or that the user can't pronounce.

By analogy, I would suggest that C-x 8 could be considered a
single-shift to a designated secondary input method.  The default
should be "traditional C-x 8", but it should be reconfigurable to a
"single shift" to any LEIM IM.  (This probably requires extensions to
LEIM.)  C-x 9 could give a menu of available input methods (ordered by
user preference), then you enter one char using that IM.  C-u versions
of C-x 8 and C-x 9 could allow changing the defaults (C-u C-x 9
therefore probably should invoke a Customize method).

This is quite complex, but the typical monolingual "The sysadmin set
LANG in /etc/profile and I've never noticed" user still won't notice.
Nor will Latin-2 users who need to enter the Euro sign (once U+20AC
gets added to C-x 8 :-).  Buddhist scholars and other polyglots will
get a lot of benefit from it, I think, although they really want a
'input-method text property.


Footnotes: 
[1]  I don't know of any context-sensitive implementations, except in
edict.el, and that's broken at the moment.  AFAIK Emacs is the only
app with any hope of getting it right, anyway.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
 My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things.  I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember.  Scott Gilbert c.l.py

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Miles Bader]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org> writes:
> By analogy, I would suggest that C-x 8 could be considered a
> single-shift to a designated secondary input method.  The default
> should be "traditional C-x 8", but it should be reconfigurable to a
> "single shift" to any LEIM IM.

That seems like a good idea; it would make me happy, anyway, and maybe
would answer Eli's misgivings about having the old C-x 8 code around in
addition to LEIM.

> Buddhist scholars and other polyglots will get a lot of benefit from
> it, I think

Heh, `Emacs, optimized for Buddhist scholars.'

-Miles
-- 
97% of everything is grunge

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    By analogy, I would suggest that C-x 8 could be considered a
    single-shift to a designated secondary input method.  The default
    should be "traditional C-x 8", but it should be reconfigurable to a
    "single shift" to any LEIM IM.

That would be a good idea in principle--if we first extend the
Latin-1 input methods so they can handle all the Latin-1 characters.
Right now C-x 8 handles some that Latin-1-postfix does not.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     By analogy, I would suggest that C-x 8 could be considered a
>     single-shift to a designated secondary input method.  The default
>     should be "traditional C-x 8", but it should be reconfigurable to a
>     "single shift" to any LEIM IM.
>
> That would be a good idea in principle--if we first extend the
> Latin-1 input methods so they can handle all the Latin-1 characters.
> Right now C-x 8 handles some that Latin-1-postfix does not.

For the C-x 8 case, it seems convenient that people can use either
C-x 8 ' e or C-x 8 e ' to insert the same character.  This would be
an argument in favor of a new input method.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    > That would be a good idea in principle--if we first extend the
    > Latin-1 input methods so they can handle all the Latin-1 characters.
    > Right now C-x 8 handles some that Latin-1-postfix does not.

    For the C-x 8 case, it seems convenient that people can use either
    C-x 8 ' e or C-x 8 e ' to insert the same character.  This would be
    an argument in favor of a new input method.

I don't exactly follow.  It is an argument in favor of which
new input method?  To do what?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     > That would be a good idea in principle--if we first extend the
>     > Latin-1 input methods so they can handle all the Latin-1 characters.
>     > Right now C-x 8 handles some that Latin-1-postfix does not.
>
>     For the C-x 8 case, it seems convenient that people can use either
>     C-x 8 ' e or C-x 8 e ' to insert the same character.  This would be
>     an argument in favor of a new input method.
>
> I don't exactly follow.  It is an argument in favor of which
> new input method?  To do what?

You suggested to change C-x 8 such that it reads a single key sequence
using an existing "secondary" input method.  Then people can use input
method A for the normal case and use C-x 8 (or another key) to insert
rarely used characters with input method B.

I like this suggestion.

I'm only making a very minor proposal: while people should be able to
choose any input method for C-x 8, it might be nice to create a new
input method that's specially designed for C-x 8.  Here's why:  A
normal input method should take care not to "steal" to many character
sequences from users, as users normally want to type in regular ascii
text.  But after the user has typed C-x 8 they don't want to type in
regular ascii text, they want to type in nonascii characters.  So it
is okay to "steal" more characters.

One specific example of "stealing" more characters is that existing
(Latin) input methods are either prefix or postfix methods, but not
both.  But the C-x 8 input method can be both, without
inconveniencing users.  So the C-x 8 input method could allow users
to type, say, "' e" to get é (like a latin-*-prefix input method), and
it could also allow users to type "e '" (like a latin-*-postfix
method).


How would one go about writing a command which reads a single key
sequence according to an input method?  Just tell me where to start
looking.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    >     For the C-x 8 case, it seems convenient that people can use either
    >     C-x 8 ' e or C-x 8 e ' to insert the same character.  This would be
    >     an argument in favor of a new input method.
    >
    > I don't exactly follow.  It is an argument in favor of which
    > new input method?  To do what?

    You suggested to change C-x 8 such that it reads a single key sequence
    using an existing "secondary" input method.  Then people can use input
    method A for the normal case and use C-x 8 (or another key) to insert
    rarely used characters with input method B.

    I like this suggestion.

Now I know what you're referring to.  The expression "new input method"
suggested something different.

I am not the one who originated the idea, I only said I liked it.

    I'm only making a very minor proposal: while people should be able to
    choose any input method for C-x 8, it might be nice to create a new
    input method that's specially designed for C-x 8.

I see your point, and it would require zero additional change to
permit input methods that were intended for use only in C-x 8.  But I
tend to think they won't be useful, because it won't be worth learning
a different input method just for use within C-x 8.  The whole idea
here is that you put an input method on C-x 8 to use it "occasionally."
People don't want to learn a lot more in order to do something occasionally.

Now, if there could be a systematic simplification, such as
"You don't need to type ., after C-x 8", that could be worth while
because the amount one needs to remember is small.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> I see your point, and it would require zero additional change to
> permit input methods that were intended for use only in C-x 8.  But
> I tend to think they won't be useful, because it won't be worth
> learning a different input method just for use within C-x 8.  The
> whole idea here is that you put an input method on C-x 8 to use it
> "occasionally."  People don't want to learn a lot more in order to
> do something occasionally.
>
> Now, if there could be a systematic simplification, such as
> "You don't need to type ., after C-x 8", that could be worth while
> because the amount one needs to remember is small.

The "systematic simplification" I have in mind would be that C-x 8
offers both prefix-style sequences and postfix-style sequences:

    C-x 8 ' e
    C-x 8 e '

Both of these sequences insert the é character.

Another thing that's useful, IMHO, is to make C-x 8 change as little
as possible.  That is, if the C-x 8 foo key sequence inserted the bar
character before, it should continue to do so.

Yet another idea: it is harmless to override many key sequences in
C-x 8, so C-x 8 could offer convenient shortcuts, in case people like
them.

In the end, we just compute the union of

  - the existing set of key sequences for C-x 8
  - latin-*-prefix
  - latin-*-postfix
  - whatever else comes to our mind.

We just need to be careful when conflicts arise.  I don't know how to
resolve them: should we prefer the old C-x 8 bindings, or the latin-*
input methods?

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    The "systematic simplification" I have in mind would be that C-x 8
    offers both prefix-style sequences and postfix-style sequences:

	C-x 8 ' e
	C-x 8 e '

Your suggestions all seem advantageous if one assumes that C-x 8 will
continue to be a separate feature.

But we had the very attractive suggestion that C-x 8 should invoke an
alternate input method, with the user selecting which input method.
(The default might be latin-1-prefix.)  I don't see how these ideas
could fit together with that idea.

Are you suggesting that C-x 8 should systematically modify whichever
input method is selected, by adding new sequences based on reordering
the sequences of that input method?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     The "systematic simplification" I have in mind would be that C-x 8
>     offers both prefix-style sequences and postfix-style sequences:
>
> 	C-x 8 ' e
> 	C-x 8 e '
>
> Your suggestions all seem advantageous if one assumes that C-x 8 will
> continue to be a separate feature.
>
> But we had the very attractive suggestion that C-x 8 should invoke an
> alternate input method, with the user selecting which input method.
> (The default might be latin-1-prefix.)  I don't see how these ideas
> could fit together with that idea.

My suggestion is: C-x 8 should invoke an alternate input method, and
the user can select which input method that should be.

But the default should not be latin-1-prefix.  Instead, in addition to
the input methods latin-*-prefix and latin-*-postfix, create a new
input method.  Make C-x 8 default to that new input method.

The new input method would be constructed by the union of
latin-*-prefix and latin-*-postfix.  So people used to *-prefix and
people used to *-postfix will feel right at home.

Does this make it clearer?
kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    But the default should not be latin-1-prefix.  Instead, in addition to
    the input methods latin-*-prefix and latin-*-postfix, create a new
    input method.  Make C-x 8 default to that new input method.

    The new input method would be constructed by the union of
    latin-*-prefix and latin-*-postfix.  So people used to *-prefix and
    people used to *-postfix will feel right at home.

Currently C-x 8 supports adding all the Latin-1 characters.
We don't want to lose that feature.  Does latin-1-prefix
support them all?

Rather than constructing latin-*-allfix by hand, we could set up a
mechanism that unions two input methods, and then use that to define
them.  That might be easy to write.  It should not compute the union
until someone selects the input method.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Florian Weimer]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Currently C-x 8 supports adding all the Latin-1 characters.
> We don't want to lose that feature.  Does latin-1-prefix
> support them all?

Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> added all characters shown by
'list-charset-chars' to latin-1-prefix except the non-breaking space
character.

Most of the symbols are missing in latin-1-postfix, though.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> added all characters shown by
    'list-charset-chars' to latin-1-prefix except the non-breaking space
    character.

We ought to have a way to insert non-breaking space.  Someone recently
asked for that.  Can people figure out a good sequence to use for it?

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Florian Weimer]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> added all characters shown by
>     'list-charset-chars' to latin-1-prefix except the non-breaking space
>     character.
>
> We ought to have a way to insert non-breaking space.  Someone recently
> asked for that.  Can people figure out a good sequence to use for it?

"_~" might do it.  "~" standas for an non-breaking space in TeX, so it
is slightly mnemonic.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    "_~" might do it.

That is safe, but not very convenient to type.
Let's use this, unless someone has a better idea.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Richard Stallman]

    > Now, if there could be a systematic simplification, such as
    > "You don't need to type ., after C-x 8", that could be worth while
    > because the amount one needs to remember is small.

    The "systematic simplification" I have in mind would be that C-x 8
    offers both prefix-style sequences and postfix-style sequences:

I am not sure we are talking about the same thing.

I was talking about a systematic way for C-x 8 to alter the usage
of whatever input method you have selected for it to invoke.

Are you proposing that C-x 8 would systematically alter the selected
input method to allow prefix-style and postfix-style sequences?
It is easy to do this manually for certain input methods, but may
be difficult to do it automatically to any given input method.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Miles Bader]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:
> I see your point, and it would require zero additional change to
> permit input methods that were intended for use only in C-x 8.  But I
> tend to think they won't be useful, because it won't be worth learning
> a different input method just for use within C-x 8.

That's true, but the sort of `special input method' Kai is talking about
is, I think, intended to make C-x 8 _easier_ to remember, by adding
multiple redundant ways of getting the same character (something which
you don't want to do with a usual input method, because it steals too
many bindings that would normally be used for self-insertion).

E.g., é might be typable using both C-x 8 ' e and C-x 8 e '
That way, users won't have to remember whether C-x 8 requires accents
to be a prefix or a suffix.

-Miles
-- 
80% of success is just showing up.  --Woody Allen

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

> Why not augment the existing input methods to do what you find
> convenient in C-x 8, or make a new input method, if augmenting
> existing ones is impractical?

Ah, I think I made a mistake in phrasing my message.  Here is what I
really want:

Normally I use input method X but every once in a while I'd like to
insert a character which is not in input method X.  I would like a
convenient method to press a couple of keys that lead to insertion of
this character.  Preferably a mnemonic key sequence :-)

I don't think of C-x 8 as an implementation method, I only think of
it as a way to type a sequence of keys to achieve what I want.

Your suggestion of augmenting german-prefix to also make it possible
to enter the euro sign is a good suggestion.  However, it will not
work for all cases.  Input methods generally frob keys which are
normally self-inserting.  But if too many of the self-inserting keys
change their meaning, usage of the self-inserting keys becomes
cumbersome.  (That's what I don't want to use latin-1-prefix: it
frobs the "'" key which I use often.)

So I would like to have a method which starts with a key which is
normally not self-inserting.  And C-x 8 just came to mind as an
example.  It doesn't have to be C-x 8.

Does this explain what I'm looking for?

(Incidentally, I think it might be nice to be able to insert named
characters.  So the user hits a key, then types, say "LATIN CAPITAL
LETTER A WITH OGONEK" (with completion), and then that character is
inserted.  This is, of course, orthogonal to the C-x 8 feature.)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai =?iso-8859-1?q?Gro=DFjohann?=)
> Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 11:52:43 +0200
> 
> So I would like to have a method which starts with a key which is
> normally not self-inserting.  And C-x 8 just came to mind as an
> example.  It doesn't have to be C-x 8.

In that case, may I suggest adding an input method whose key sequences
start with keys that aren't self-inserting?  Since Leim is nowadays
part of Emacs, I don't see a reason to have ways of typing characters
that circumvent Leim.

> Incidentally, I think it might be nice to be able to insert named
> characters.  So the user hits a key, then types, say "LATIN CAPITAL
> LETTER A WITH OGONEK" (with completion), and then that character is
> inserted.

I agree.  However, this is not a kind of a facility that could support
fast typing, as names of many characters begin the same (so even with
completion you'll need to type quite a bit before it's unambiguated).
I believe Miles wanted a solution that facilitates fast typing.

Re: Insert Euro symbol

[Kai Großjohann]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

>> From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai =?iso-8859-1?q?Gro=DFjohann?=)
>> Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 11:52:43 +0200
>> 
>> So I would like to have a method which starts with a key which is
>> normally not self-inserting.  And C-x 8 just came to mind as an
>> example.  It doesn't have to be C-x 8.
>
> In that case, may I suggest adding an input method whose key sequences
> start with keys that aren't self-inserting?  Since Leim is nowadays
> part of Emacs, I don't see a reason to have ways of typing characters
> that circumvent Leim.

But I already use an input method.  So your suggestion means I have
to change input methods to get the "C-x 8" keys.

But maybe C-x 8 could be changed to a command which reads one key
sequence according to a different input method.  Then we can devise
an input methods with ways to input lots of different characters, and
have C-x 8 use it.

>> Incidentally, I think it might be nice to be able to insert named
>> characters.  So the user hits a key, then types, say "LATIN CAPITAL
>> LETTER A WITH OGONEK" (with completion), and then that character is
>> inserted.
>
> I agree.  However, this is not a kind of a facility that could support
> fast typing

Sure.  It's a different feature; not a substitute for C-x 8.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!