Re: Indic input methods

[Pablo Saratxaga <pablo mandrakesoft com>]

Kaixo!

On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 11:07:46AM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
 
> > For example if I want to type some words in devanagari and others
> > in tamil script, what should I do?
> 
> You can switch input methods from the right click menu in a GtkEntry
> or GtkTextView widget.

Thanks

> The implementation of these input methods looks fine, but I'm a little
> uncertain about them in one regard - they really are just keymaps, not
> input methods,

You mean the mapping is not fonetik, but made so that on an us keyboard
the ayout happens to be the same as in an Indian keyboard?

Inded that's not very good.

A nice thing would be real transliteration input methods.

> and it should be possible to do these with a Xkb
> keyboard map.

could the right click button be extended so that it also shows a list of
xkb tables (user configurable in some dotfile), and call setxkbmap with
the proper value ?

> It doesn't strike me as quite right to ... assuming a US keyboard map,

As a user of French and Belgian keyboards I really heartly agree with you

> I still don't have a good feel for the proper interaction between
> keyboard maps and input methods.

It should be completly independent (that is an error often criticized
to the Japanese MS-IME: it pnly works on US keyboard, if you are French
with a French keyboard (or even Japanese, with a Japanese keyboard, but
without a Japanese Windows) you are fucked).

what keys send is handled by xkb (or xmodmap) only.
the role of the input method is to allow for more complex things, like
transliterations, input checking (see the threads on Thai handling),
or composing and complex composing (eg: vietnamese input is something like
that; also inuktitut input on a syllabic keyboard has a key for the dot above;
the input method could ensure that dead_abovedot + inuktitutsyllab will
produce the right thing (libX11 should allow it too; but: it currently only
works for a small subset, not for any arbitrary combinaison, and even if
it worked, it would require having a .../locales/UTF-8/Compose file
incredibly huge, with support for all languages and scripts. handling that
on the input method will give more flexibility, and the possibility to
better follow users needs (and will be independant of a given version of
a given implementation of X11))

> Regards,

-- 
Ki ça vos våye bén,
Pablo Saratxaga

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