Re: Updating gtkimcontextsimple.c (bug #321896)

["Tor Lillqvist" <tml iki fi>]

>  Unicode's combining characters are
>  supposed to be typed after the base letter, while dead keys are typed  before.

I don't think how you *type* stuff on a keyboard is something Unicode
attempts to say anything about. What Unicode says about combining
characters is that in a stream of Unicode code points (like in
computer memory, or other storage medium, or in a communication
stream) they combining characters follow the base character.

I don't see any problem in having various software layers handle dead
keys so that they turn into combining characters which then are placed
in the generated stream of Unicode code points *after* the base letter
which they apply to.

>  - Users expect their already existing dead keys to act as dead keys,
>   i.e. be typed before the base letter on which to put the accent.
>  - Users don't see the technical difference between î and n̂: it's just
>   letters with circumflex above (be they precomposed or not).  And so
>   they will very naturally want to just use the existing dead key to
>   type n̂.

I fully agree with these points.

--tml