RFC - keyboard shortcuts in Gnome 2

[Simos Xenitellis]

Hello Arthit,
	Thanks for the e-mail. 
Now I got the concepts more clarified.

	Sorry for this long e-mail. In the following I describe in detail
situations where the shortcuts do not work in GNOME when a non-latin
keyboard is active. I ask other affected non-latin users to verify.
Also, I ask for the terminology according to GNOME for the shortcut
terms, if there are different ones.

Starting...

Requirements:
- GNOME 1.4.0
- gswitchit 0.70 to see which keyboard (us or el) is enabled.
http://gswitchit.sourceforge.net/
- gedit (for experiments of the shortcuts)

Definitions:
	There are "shortcuts" of the three types
1) "_Edit"
2) "_Copy" 
3) "Ctrl+C"

To visualise, from gedit (or any other editor):

======================================
| _Edit         | _Search | _Options |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ...
| Cancel  Ctrl+Z|
| Repeat  Ctrl+R|
|----------------
| Cu_t    Ctrl+X|
| _Copy   Ctrl+C|
| _Paste  Ctrl+P|
-----------------

==== The "_Edit" case ==== 1 ====
  a- While we are writing in the editor and press "Alt+E" (modified key:
Alt), the edit menu opens. 
  b- What is the terminology of "Alt+E", access key, shortcut, other?.
  c- In Greek, "Edit" is "Epejergasia" (I use here latin letters, the
Greek Epsilon looks exactly the same, but is different ISO8859-7 or
Unicode code). When I press "Alt+?", where "?" is the latin "E" or "e",
the Greek "E" or "e", nothing happens. The menu does not open up.
  d- I would like someone to verify in another language, example:
Russian, Turkish etc. 

==== The "_Copy" case ==== 2 ====
  a- While the "_Edit" menu is open and the focus is in one of the menu
items, one can press the "c" letter (no modifier key) to invoke the
"_Copy" function.
  b- What is the terminology of the "C" letter from "_Copy"?
  c- In Greek, "_Copy" is "_Antigrafh". Again, the "A" is the Greek
letter, different ISO8859-7/Unicode code from the latin "A". When
pressing the Greek letter, capital or not, the "Copy" function is not
invoked. 
  d- Again, can someone verify this?

==== The "Ctrl+C" case ==== 3 ====
  a- While in the editor, one can use "Ctrl+C" for the copy function.
This works because "Ctrl+C" is specified in the menu /Edit/Copy/.
Additionally, one can change this shortcut quite easily. When the "Copy"
menu-item is highlighted, one can press a key combination with one of
the following modifiers Ctrl, Alt, Alt Gr or Shift to set a new
shortcut. In the subsection below I get in more detail on this.
  b- I believe that "Ctrl+C" is a "shortcut", right?
  c- In Greek, Ctrl+? does not honor the Greek letters. It shows the
equivalent latin character. However, this is perfectly ok, by pressing
the same (hardware) keys, it functions. Thus, with Ctrl, it's per
hardware key. In Greek, Alt+? works perfectly. It recognises the Greek
letters and can use them properly while editing text. The binding is
with character instead of the (hardware) key.
  d- Can someone verify these?

=== The Subsection ===
Valid combinations appear to be 
	Ctrl+?
	Shift+Ctrl+? 	(binds to (hardware) key)
	Ctrl+Alt+?  	(binds to (hardware) key)
	Alt+?		(binds to character, good!)
	Alt+Shift	This is used to switch between 
			English/Greek. It's a common
			keyboard switch combination.
			I believe GNOME should ignore it
			and not use it as a valid key combination
			for a shortcut. The KeySym (terminology??)
			is "Alt+ISO_Prev_Group".
	Alt Gr+?	When in non-latin mode (Greek, or other 			secondary group?),
it grabs the non-latin
			key verbatim, without modifier.
			In the case of the editor, this makes it
			a useless combination. Pressing a key
			for "Copy" on selected text, erases the text.

==== And a request ===
Does anyone know of an X or GNOME application that can grab events sent
to an application so that to see what is really sent?

Thanks in advance,
Simos


Την Τρι, 29-01-2002 στις 13:03, ο/η Arthit Suriyawongkul έγραψε:
> [UTF-8 encoded]
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Simos Xenitellis wrote:
> > a) When pressing Ctrl-? ("?" is any local character, Greek in my case),
> > does the application receive an event with the local "?" character? My
> > impression (from the Greek XKB settings, GNOME 1.4) is that with Ctrl,
> > only the english character is passed. Can anyone verify?
> 
> IMHO,
> 
> if the shortcut binds to "key button" (hardware) or "key map",
> it will not work.
> 
> but if the shortcut really binds to "character", it will work.
> (consider that "?" from Greek charset is equivalent to
> "?" from Latin1 charset.  Unicode sez that it should be equal.)
> 
> 
> >from my test, it seems that most (if not all) software's
> shortcut binds to "key map" or "key button".
> 
> e.g.
> i can press Alt-ำ Alt-ฎ to invoke "_Edit" menu.
> just because "ำ" shares same "key button" (hardware) with "e"
> and "ฎ" shares it with "E".
> 
> ( ำ = Thai Character Sara Am, ฎ = Thai Character Do Chada)
> 
> 
> hmm... so, in this case.
> does "?" in Greek keyboard (hardware) use the same
> "key button" (hardware) as "?" in US keyboard ?
> 
> if not... it may not work :(
> 
> 
> ----
> 
> to solve the problem, we should use the actual
> "character" from "key button".
> 
> and to achieve the best, Unicode equivalent of characters
> should be in mind.
> 
> 
> ("X" from one charset/keymap should be
> equal to "X" from another charset/keymap)
> 
> 
> regards,
> Art
>