On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Shachar Shemesh wrote: > Hi all, > > I am having a strange problem with X and a hebrew keyboard. > > I recently began to have a look at gnome2 (Debian/Sid). While it has > some nice features, I am having a slight problem with switching the > keyboard to Hebrew mode. > > I have added the small applet, and added a Hebrew keyboard with "Hebrew > xkb keymap"
(One minor point: I wondoer where the name "Hebrew" came from. The map itself is called "Israelian" because keymaps are named after countries rather than languages) > (the other one didn't work at all). When I switch to it, and > type hebrew, however, I get English characters. > Whoever created this applet failed to understand (or represent) the xkd model for keyboard mapping. It seems to make the same mistake as KDE's kxkb: in the current XKB "layout" there may be up to 4 "groups". "layout" and "group" are the terms used in xkb itself. you can easily switch (temporarily or permanently) from one group to another (only takes 1 X event). Loading a different layout is a different story: it requires loading a complete (compiled) map description to the server. Whenever you switch layout in one of the above two GUIs, you really switch an xkb "layout", not only an xkb "group". This also has some nasty side-effects. And the nicest side effect is that you basically always have to be in the "Israelian" layout. There is basically no point for using the GUI switcher to switch to the US layout. So it only takes some extra screen real-estate and make create extra confusion in case you press the wrong keys (ctrl-alt-K?). BTW: XFree 4.3 will finally allow easy composition of "symbols" for different layouts. This may be the problem that cased such mis-representation to appear int he first-place. > Running xmodmap reveals that the Hebrew characters are located on the > alternate location. Sure enough, pressing the right alt while typing > produces Hebrew characters. xmodmap is a program that is unaware of the full abilities of xkb. It only knows about the first to layouts (there may be up to four) and about the first two shift levels of each layout (there may be up to 64 shift levels). That said, in your case, 2 shift levels and 2 groups are enough ;-) > > Can anyone please help me out regarding what is going on here? That used > to work (admitably, not in gnome). Did they make some trick to have the > alt keyboard active? Why is that trick not working now? How can I make > it work again? Ditch that GUI switcher. Remain always in the "Israeli" layout. run 'setxkbmap -option grp:shift_toggle,grp:switch,grp_led:scroll il' on X startup (does debain have yet anything like redhat and mandrake's /etc/X11/Xkbmap / $HOME/.Xkbmap ?) -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
