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Summary: Italian keyboard needs some changes
Product: Client Libraries
Version: 4.3
OS/Version: Linux
Status: NEW
Severity: minor
Priority: P2
Component: other
AssignedTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ReportedBy: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I am an Italian (avid) Linux User, and would like to propose a few changes to
the Italian keyboard layout. Until now, I have been using xmodmap to fix the
standard it keyboard distributed with Red Hat (which I assume from the comments
in the files to be the one produced by XFree, but please tell me if I'm wrong).
Now xmodmap has some problems, hence this RFE.
There are two problems with the current Italian layout. One is a problem that
pertains technical people, the other pertains writers.
The first problem is the location of braces. Braces are heavily used in many
common programming languages and in TeX. They are positioned on AltGr+7/0, which
is very uncomfortable for fast typists.
Most programmers are used to US keyboards, and find very useful to get braces
using SHIFT+AltGr+"�"/"+" (as AltGr+"�"/"+" produces "["/"]"). It is logical, as
it is essentially SHIFT+"["/"]".
The current assignment to those combination are dead keys for accents that are
not used in Italian (dead circ and macron accents). Probably no Italian user
ever knew that they are there. Thus, having braces there should not give
backward compatibility problems, and would definitely improve usability for
programmers and TeXnicians. The macron is used sometimes in Latin, so it would
be useful to have it anyway, but read below.
The second problem is the lack of dead keys for accents we *do* use, that is,
grave, acute and (albeit it is archaic) circumflex.
The Italian keyboard has keys for all lower case accented letters commonly used
in our language (e.g., �,�,�,�,�,�). However, we also use accents on upper case
letters, which are available in ISO-8859-1 (e.g., �,�,�,�,�). There is no way to
produce these symbols with the present keyboard, as they are not assigned, and
we have no dead keys for grave and acute accents.
The need for grave and acute accents is also increased by the fact that Italian
writers and publishers do not completely agree on the nature of accents for i
and u. Some of the most important publishers (say, Einaudi) use *acute accents*
on i and u, and again these symbols are not available.
I propose a pattern where dead keys for accents are located on keys producing
similar symbols.
Currently, SHIFT+AltGr+"'" produces a questiondown, which is not used in
Italian. I would propose that SHIFT+AltGr+"'" produces a dead grave accent
instead. This would allow to introduce grave-accented letters in a rather
logical way, and would solve the problem for upper case letters. It is
reasonable, as AltGr+"'" is a backtick, which looks like a grave accent.
Finding a place for the dead acute accent is harder (had we not the necessity of
producing the backtick, I would have proposed AltGr+"'"). The most reasonable
key is ",", as it looks like an acute accent. Thus, AltGr+"," should produce a
dead acute accent. Currently it is free.
It is not over. Archaic (but very fashionable!) Italian writing of certain words
ending in "io" (e.g., "polinomio", which means "polynomial") use a *cirmcumflex*
accent. That is, "polynomials" is written "polinom�". Again, we have no way of
producing this letter (I had to use the Gnome Character Map). Since
SHIFT+AltGr+"�" produces a dead ogonek (again, we do not use it), I would
propose that SHIFT+AltGr+"�" produces a dead circumflex accent instead. Since
SHIFT+"�" is exactly "^", this should be again logical and reasonable.
Finally, following the above pattern the dead macron would be much better placed
on AltGr+"-" (currently free) and the dead double acute would be much better
placed on SHIFT+AltGr+2, as it would be AltGr+'"'.
Thank you for your attention.
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