[ros-kernel] last keymap contribution - needs accent support

[correasilva at tugamail.com]

(attch:Keymaps_040104.zip) 


The results (C compatible) are in the CCode folder 

I simplified the parsed keyboard format (only with 7 text lines), making it 
easier to convert into C code (as i think it can), and corrected some  pkf 
(?) documents - the more recent converter i'm sending gets capslockable key 
information 

Mark: i don't know if you got my late converter an resulted code - i'm not 
sure because i'm having dificulties getting registered into ros mailing list 
 - i think maybe you didn't receive it since i couldn't get registered yet 
into any ReactOS mailing list  - your messages (Yerkes and Ijbema) i readed 
only after dowloaded as .gz files from the reactos.com mailing list 
repository 

Beign honest, i think a simpler keymap format, like those first text based i 
sent are the best ones for fast editing and replicating (no other way i 
would try to contribute with 30 layouts in a 2 or 3 day timespace without 
that hard work (i did it like playing a very easy game)) - the converter to 
the last c code format (based on the so current layouts at lib/kbdxx) i did 
in the same way (of course may need deep corrections, but that is the main 
idea about making configurations only ready to be easily pasted into kbdxx.c 
code and get compiled ) 

The keymap editing as text editing allown me to make a latin extended 
version of british keyboard as easy, would not be that if i had to enter it 
in a deep C code, and getting the risk of making errors much more blindly 

The attachment is smaller than 75k, i hope you don't mind... - as well if 
you can send me too the stuff you got until now, please be welcome 
(including the source Linux keymaps which i think are .txt based too) (if 
the attachment is larger than 500k please split it, or better, please upload 
it to free http or ftp servers if it's an easy task for you) 

In which programming language are you writing the converter?  (i'm using 
wxBasic) 

Btw, i'm curious about the keymap list you contributed or about to 
contribute - i think these keymaps even if are incomplete or wrong, are 
better than nothing, so we can fix it as needed - and btw, these keyboards 
will need testing feedback on people would effectively use it 

As i think i said, i'm not a C coding expert, so i don't know if you could 
test your converting results and get to know some feedback 

In the CCode folder of this attachment i started to get again accent result, 
but i don't know how it can be supported from the kbdxx.c codes, since the 
last ones seems to be incomplete for supporting accenting, AltGr and 
Shift+AltGr  - i'm trying to point my converted code to it, so i'm 
completely dependant of the kbdxx.c code part for read it    - maybe you 
have the same situation about your converted code 

>Mark: Btw, i'm working on a tool to automatically convert linux keyboard layouts to windows keyboard layouts.

Of course i don't want you stop your iniciative on converting keymaps from 
Linux (and probably from other OSes) - it's very needed! 

Hard task would be find a standard for AltGr and Shift+AltGr - 'Euro' 
(AltGr+e) and 'Mu'(AltGr+m) seems to have a default place for it - 
'PerThousand', 'Yen', 'Bullet', 'PlusMinus', 'TM', 'Registered', 
'Copyright', 'ae' and 'oe' ligatures can have almost a right place for it, 
and about smart quotes i'm trying to do my best.  - even from the over-128 
ascii, there are lots of characters can be nicely and welcomely replace dead 
keys 

My oppinion:
 - AltGr and Shift+AltGr complete combinations are deeply needed
 - the less dead keys as possible, which maybe would be nicer replacing for 
'.' or '?', as i did in my converter   (personal oppinion: the only dead key 
i want is the so annoying WinKey! =))) - i really needed to open my 
keyboards and cut the contacts!)    (reference: afaik, all MacOS keyboards i 
know has no deadkeys) 

Until now, i found no webpage holding all available Linux keymaps, and i 
haven't Linux installed now (the only Linux keymaps i downloaded were about 
.xmm native indian ones (from indlinux.org i think) which nothing i could 
understand - it seems to call unicode characters - ???? ) 

The main very need for now is accenting (and know how must be the code would 
support it) - even american and british keyboards needs it because good part 
of their foreign-based vocabulary is plenty of accented words. 

My idea is focus on a sinergy - so the question is if the Linux keymaps are 
complete enough (they SHOULD be) - my concern is mostly focusing on Accent 
and AltGr/ShiftAltGr issues, which may be also a contribute back to Linux if 
we got better keymaps (i can't remember how complete were the 
PortugueseStandard Linux keymap, for example) - about accenting, i'm even 
considering 's','d' and 'c' as accentable also from acute key (it's very 
useful)  - and of course my contribute can help yours and vice-versa, this 
would be excellent 

Keyboard and mouse driver coders: more soon than we can imagine, in a near 
future, very probably ReactOS will be ported to run on Apple Mac computers - 
and the default on Apple Macs are using one-button mouse (thanks god, 
because one-button mouses are lots more comfortable to use, specially at 
'working-marathons' ) - the default for right-button on macOS is ctrl+click 
 - this should mean maybe the keyboard driver should output somewhere the 
CtrlKeyPressed value where the mouse driver can read it, like at a low-level 
RAM memory address ( is it complicated or impossible?)(and btw, would be a 
very important feature x86-ReactOS can have defaultly, as x86-BeOS has about 
its excellent default mouse configuration, which you can choose which 
function you want to each button, doesn't matter how much buttons it has) -  
YellowDog and Mac-Debian Linux users and developers: how Mac-Linux deals 
with one-button mouses? 


Paulo 


______ 

> Art Yerkes:
> ReactOS currently implements a compatible keyboard layout format to the
Windows 2000(r) one, which requires more information (such as keycaps
names and VK conversions) than these simpler layouts provide.
> I'd recommend contacting Mark Ijbema to help with the conversion project he has underway.  There is definately work still to be done in this area.
> If you'd like to have a look at the current layouts, they are in
lib/kbdus, lib/kbdfr, etc in the reactos source.  Although this format
is a bit complicated, it has the advantage that it's compatible, and
fairly easy to load from the win32 kernel mode part. 

>Mark Ijbema:
> I'm away untill sunday the 11th though. The script works quite nice at
the moment, but does not support dead keys and stuff yet. It will
probably take me some more weeks (when i come back there's a lot
non-reactos stuff which i have to do). 

 


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