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From: hsrodgers AT UCLAlumni DOT net
Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000716120756.00a26440@mail.earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 12:09:20 -0700
To: cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
Subject: Other languages - secondarily
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      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?

«Howard»


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