Re: [gtk-list] Re: gdkkeysyms.h question

[Andreas Leitner <leitner eiffel com>]

> So to solve your problem you probably want to use both Tab and
> ISO_Left_Tab as in gtkwindow.c. Apparently GDK_KP_Tab should also be in
> this group. Presumably some workstations in the past had different keys
> for these different tabs, and that's why there are multiple keysyms. Then
> the various X server vendors on PC keyboards set up the defaults
> differently.

Thank you very much for your help. I had a look in the X Programming
Manual and it basically said the same thing. I only think that the
keysym abstraction is still too low level for an application library
(GTK is supposed to be one, isn't it). It is likely that with this
redundancy new bugs will be introduced (like the one that I found in
GtkWindow), on the other side the benefits of those redundant constants
are vague. At least I cannot see any.

I think it would be helpful to provide at least another mapping function
that converts the keysym code to a even more abstract code, with a set
of constants that are non-reduntant.

We are doing a high level multi platform that uses GTK on several
platforms (in Eiffel. I cannot expect the users of my library to take
care of such situations. So we probably end up translating the value
ourselves.

I have no idea about any road map for GTK, but do you consider that this
additional abstraction is a valuable goal for one of the next versions?

many thanks for your help,
Andreas

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Andreas Leitner

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