On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:51:04 +0200, busmanus wrote: > My intuition would suggest, that the language setting should be > independently modifiable if necessary from within the editor you are > working with, rather than having different language versions for > otherwise identical keyboard layouts.
There are several aspects that can be discussed (for example the capabilities or limitations of the system, or the editor), but let's limit the discussion to the keyboard itself. As I said, I have inspired myself from MS Windows OS, where one can first choose a (keyboard) input locale for the same base language (for example English (Australia), English (Canada), English (Ireland), English (etc.), or approx. 6 French categories, or approx. 5 Germans categories, or approx. 20 Spanish categories, etc.), then for that selected language several keyboard layouts can be choosen simultaneously, to switch between them at any moment during an application work. In my case, there is only one language defined (Romanian). Then, for this Romanian, the standard defines the overall character set that *should* be generated using this keyboard (basically the ISO/IEC 8859-16 character set). Then defines all the dead keys number and position and recommends the character set that *may* be composed by using those dead keys. I avoided defining as mandatory the list of dead key composed characters, because of real-life limitations on existing systems (i.e. codepage limitations). Then, based on that overall character set, I have defined the two different character arrangements (keyboard layouts). And still, I am convinced that I cave not break the ISO/IEC 9995-x rules (which I have read very carefully, in order to understand what can be done to override its limitations and still keep my national standard compatible with it). Cristi
