Mail Archives: cygwin/2000/07/16/19:36:55
On Sun, Jul 16, 2000 at 12:09:20PM -0700, hsrodgers AT UCLAlumni DOT net wrote:
> I'm tired of having Windoze mess up and am about ready to give Linux
>a try. But first I need to know if there is a way for me to type in other
>languages (mainly Romance languages) besides English - without having to
>mess up my keyboard layout. I can do that with WordPerfect (DOS) version
>5.1+. So I'm looking for a way to do the same in Windows 98 and/or
>Linux.. Here is my plea:
> Foreign language keyboard layouts are fine - in the countries that need
>them. But they are next to worthless for us here in the U.S. when we need
>to write in another language, secondarily - too many keys are changed - not
>even @ for e-mail anywhere on the keyboard.
> The Spanish key layout is close to ours, would serve very well for writing
>French too - but it's enough different from ours to be of practical value.
> What is needed is for a good programmer to set up a key arrangement that
>is the same as ours but that can produce the diacritical symbols other
>languages require - by means of "dead" keys. Dead keys, the two keys at
>the right of the P, the bracket keys, can serve very well for that function
>as they don't normally get much action. Keyb Sp in the old PC/MS-DOS days
>made use of them to supply acute, grave, dieresis, and circumflex symbols -
>easily and quickly. There is no reason why they couldn't be made to do the
>same for us in the U.S. now - and also supply the tilde for ñ, the upside
>down ¿ and ¡ Spanish needs as well as ç for French and Portuguese, and the
>European «quotes» for all those languages that use them. All without
>messing up our key arrangement - everything printed on the keytop would
>produce exactly that when struck . (The bracket keys would just have be to
>struck twice).
> Some languages might require an additional key to work as a dead key, but
>even Turkish with their I and i with and without dots, their G and S,
>with diacritics added, can be arranged via the same bracket keys.
> I've done it - via WordPerfect's .WPK and macros. But it only works in WP
>Dos versions 5.x. I can type in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and
>Turkish without aborting my normal typing rhythm and darn near as fast as
>in English, thanks to the dead-key operation, which involves sequential
>keystrokes instead of having to press two or three keys at the same time,
>to say nothing of trying to use a foreign key layout.
> But I'm not a programmer, and it would take a good one to create the same
>sort of keyboard arrangement for Windows, DOS, OS/2, or Linux, or . . . .
> Any ideas?
Does this have something to do with Cygwin? I don't really see how it does.
Why not check out exactly what is available for Linux and, then, send similar
email to a Linux mailing list?
cgf
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