Re: [Bug-apl] Trouble with Unicomp keyboard

[Nick Lobachevsky]

Just an idea.  Has anyone any experience with some of the input method
editors for Asian languages, notably Japanese?  I think I have seen
something where you would type ordinary Roman letters and the input
handler would translate them first to Hiragana or Katakana (parallel
phonetic alphabets), then maybe to Kanji (there may be ambiguities) as
you typed.

It would seem to me APL input could be handled this way.  Instead of
having an explicit keyboard plane, one would type a digraph or
trigraph (for instance [ followed by ] would resolve itself to quad, [
' ] quote quad, ( | ) rotate, ( - ) rotate first axis, and so on) and
this would happen as you are typing.  This could also simplify APL
entry on smart phones.

On 4/14/14, Elias Mårtenson <address@hidden> wrote:
> If you're using Emacs I can help you bind an input method for it. It will
> only work in Emacs though.
>
> Regards,
> Elias
>
>
> On 14 April 2014 18:55, Juergen Sauermann
> <address@hidden>wrote:
>
>>  Hi Blake,
>>
>> I am not using xkbcomp myself. I have briefly tried it but I am not at
>> all
>> an expert
>> in it. I will share all my knowledge with you, but don't expect too much.
>> All the information
>> I have came from some emacs guys, see the postings around Oct 28, 2913
>> on:
>>
>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-10/index.html
>>
>> Maybe one of the emacs specialists can help you as well.
>>
>> The first step is probably to adapt apl.xkb to your keyboard layout.
>> The new apl.xkb is then compiled into an apl.xkm using xkbcomp (see man
>> xkbcomp).
>> The apl.xkm can then be installed (and that should be it, I hope).
>>
>> It is correct that xkbcomp is far more powerful that xmodmap, but the
>> power
>> comes with some more complexity.
>>
>> /// Jürgen
>>
>>
>>
>> On 04/14/2014 06:12 AM, Blake McBride wrote:
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>>  I have a Unicomp (USB) APL keyboard.  I am running the latest LinuxMint.
>>  Using:
>>
>>      xmodmap apl.xmodmap
>>
>>  does work but has two significant problems as follows:
>>
>>  1.  Many keys don't match the Unicomp layout of APL characters.  For
>> example, on the Unicomp keyboard, ← and → are on the same keyboard key,
>> not two different keys shown in keyboard.txt.  Some keys on the Unicomp
>> keyboard represent up to five different characters.
>>
>>  Although I believe keyboard.txt shows a pretty standard layout, it
>> doesn't matter what is correct when the keyboard is showing different
>> keys.
>>  It's nice to have a match.
>>
>>  2.  It seems the problem can not be fixed with xmodmap because that only
>> allows a limited number of ctl/shift/alt combinations.  It seems
>> insufficient for the Unicomp keyboard.
>>
>>
>>  I looked into xkbcomp.  That appears powerful enough to fix the problem.
>>  It seem like it handles many more ctl/shift/alt left/right combinations.
>>  The problem, for me, is that the setup file for xkbcomp seems very
>> complex.  Before I spend anymore time with it I am hoping to verify my
>> findings.  Also, help with the setup is greatly appreciated.  At this
>> point, I'm not really sure what to do.
>>
>>  There is a lot I want to do with GNU APL.  This has been holding me
>> back.
>>
>>  Thanks!
>>
>>  Blake McBride
>>
>>
>>
>