Fwd: Keyboard switching

[Edward Cherlin]

On Nov 24, 2007 6:04 AM, Sergey Udaltsov <sergey.udaltsov at gmail.com> wrote:
> Edward,
>
> > will need to allow for countries that use three or more scripts
> > routinely, for students of history, religion, and other subjects
> > involving historical source documents, and especially for students of
> > languages.

> FYI, X does not allow to have more than 4 groups in one configuration.
> If you need more - you have to reconfigure XKB. In 99% it is not an
> issue - but I know there are multilingual people who are unhappy about
> it. They have to use some workarounds.

We don't have to preconfigure everything in the xorg.conf manner. All
we need is a right button menu, like that for SCIM, allowing users to
choose a keyboard layout, and possibly an editor for that menu. The
menu selection can then invoke a call to setxkbmap.

> > Mongolia would like traditional Mongol alphabet, Cyrillic, and Latin,
> > and possibly Chinese. Certainly if we include Inner Mongolia. Plus
> > Buddhist languages, including Sanskrit and Tibetan.
> Do they need all these scripts in one configuration?

Not everybody needs all of them. Chinese is handled by SCIM, not by X
keyboards. But you have to ask teachers and students in both Mongolias
what they need. You can't decide for them.

> > China has more than 50 legally-recognized minorities, several with
> > their own writing systems (Tibetan, Mongolian, Uighur, Yi).

> Do you know many people who would use all these writing system at once?

I know of people who would like Chinese and two or three keyboards,
and a few who need Latin, Mongolian, Cyrillic, and Tibetan.

> In general, I'd tend to agree to your point that changing keyboard
> configuration should be more accessible than it is now. At the very
> least, it should be properly documented and explained. Probably,
> simple GUI configuration should be available for that task (by
> "simple" I mean it should not necessarily expose all powers of XKB
> configuration machinery).

Yes, it should only offer standard options on standard layouts.

> Bernardo, I think you concern about making
> the device screwed by choosing fancy layout is a bit of exageration -
> there is always touchpad which could be used to find the "restore
> default" button.

As I was saying, the whole apparatus should be on a right button menu.

> Cheers,
>
> Sergey
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--
Edward Cherlin
Earth Treasury: End Poverty at a Profit
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Earth_Treasury
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay



-- 
Edward Cherlin
Earth Treasury: End Poverty at a Profit
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Earth_Treasury
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay