Re: [emacs-bidi] Control-key binding while typing (for example) Hebrew

[Amit Ramon]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> [2010-06-29 20:42 +0300]:

> > Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:18:27 +0300
> > From: Amit Ramon <address@hidden>
> >
> > However, if one uses a non-standard keyboard this assumption is
> > broken. The 5th key on the first row might send some other key, not a
> > `b', which, if you don't tell Emacs about the layout, will be translated
> > to some other letter, not Nun.
> >
> > The way to tell Emacs about the layout of the keyboard is by defining
> > it and adding it to quail-keyboard-layout-alist, then set it as the
> > current layout using quail-set-keyboard-layout. You can see this in
> > the sample code that Kenichi Handa sent.
>
> This assumes that the location of Hebrew letters on the Dvorak
> keyboard is exactly the same as on the standard keyboard.  But that
> assumption is not necessarily true.  There's no "standard" for Hebrew
> Dvorak keyboard.  

There is a confusion here - perhaps I wasn't clear. I'll try again.

Whenever in this thread I talked about a Dvorak layout I was talking
about the layout for an _English_ keyboard. The Hebrew layout I'm
talking about is always the same, and is what we are all familiar
with. Again, I wasn't talking of a Hebrew Dvorak layout.

The whole discussion here is about these 2 use cases:

1. A qwerty English keyboard. The first 4 keys in the middle row are,
from left to right are asdf

2. A Dvorak English keyboard. The first 4 keys in the middle row are,
from left to right are aoeu

When I (somehow) switch to Hebrew, in _both_ keyboards I expect these
4 keys to be Shin, Dalet, Gimel, Kaf - ALWAYS. This is what I always
expect to get from a Hebrew keyboard, no matter what is the layout of
the English keys. Now if you use an input method that receives English
characters and translates them to Hebrew ones, it needs to know the
English layout.

Maybe this wasn't clear, but these are the basic assumptions. I
believe that now my previous posts will make sense, but I'd be happy
to explain the whole thing again if asked.


> At least this page:
>
> http://ramalokehrota.blogspot.com/2007/04/russian-and-hebrew-dvorak-for-x11.html
>
> advertises a Dvorak-based layout which moves the Hebrew letters
> together with the English ones.  E.g., SHIN is still on the same key
> as A, LAMED is on K, etc.  For this layout, I understand that the
> Hebrew input method that comes with Emacs out of the box will work
> without any changes.

And a side comment about the link that you mentioned that talks about
a "Hebrew Dvorak layout": I have seen it a long time ago while I was
interested in designing a Hebrew Dvorak layout. The example there is a
wrong interpretation of the concept of Dvorak layout. And you are
right - there isn't a standard for Hebrew, all my searches manage to
find just one person who was using a - home-made - Dvorak layout ;-)
Then I created one for myself, but haven't had the time to really
try to use it...

--- Amit