Re: Another --> Re: GtkMovementStep of GtkTextView

[Mark Leisher <mleisher crl nmsu edu>]

    >> 1. All clusters of characters that combine to make a single glyph are
    >> treated as a single unit for cursor motion and deletion.
    >> 
    >> 2. The exceptions to 1 include things such as the LAM-ALIF ligatures in
    >> the Arabic script, Korean syllables, Vietnamese vowels, and Indic
    >> aksharas (clusters) as they are being typed.

    Pablo> No, not Vietnamese vowels (where do you get that idea about
    Pablo> Vietnamese?

Testing with native users.  And also playing with a couple new Vietnamese word
processors while I was in Hanoi last month.  As it was explained to me, it is
very inconvenient to delete the whole vowel when you only want to change the
tone mark (apparently a common "misspelling").  The responses were
inconclusive with regard to the other pronunciation marks.

    Pablo> it is just plain latin alphabet with some accents. it just has a
    Pablo> special input method very used in Vietnam, but the input method is
    Pablo> not related to the text (there are three special and popular input
    Pablo> methods; and you can even use standard dead keys composition, the
    Pablo> result will be the same; obviously the behaviour of BackSpace must
    Pablo> be the same in all cases, unless the BackSpace knows what the input
    Pablo> is, that is, unless the BackSpace is pressed during input. I mean,
    Pablo> I can see an utility to have a special behaviour for the BackSpace
    Pablo> when inputing; think of it as the behaviour of BackSpace in chinese
    Pablo> or japanese XIM input method before validating: it deletes the
    Pablo> phonetic kana/bopomofo/latin letter last typed on input; however,
    Pablo> once validated, a backspace will delete the last ideograph, because
    Pablo> the info on the input stream has been lost, there is only the
    Pablo> stored char in the text.

Yes, with Han input, using either Pinyin or Kana, the process used to choose a
particular Hanzi/Kanji is often discarded, and deletion removes the
Hanzi/Kanji.  The whole point of this discussion is about the expected editing
behavior from users.  That is what Chinese and Japanese users have come to
expect.  Other script users expect different things, even if the input process
appears to be the same.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Leisher                      Times are bad.  Children no longer obey
Computing Research Lab            their parents, and everyone is writing
New Mexico State University       a book.
Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL                -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
Las Cruces, NM  88003