Commander X16

On 5/9/2022 at 8:20 PM, TomXP411 said:

It shouldn't be an issue if you're using PETSCII mode, since PETSCII mode doesn't use the dead keys or have diacritical marks.



I figure every programmer in the world who's not in the US deals with this every day. How do our friends in other countries deal with this? 



In my case, I have two layouts set up in Windows, and I can switch to the US-International layout when I need to work on non-English forms. I can just press Control-Alt-1 or Control-Alt-2 to quickly switch layouts on my work PC. (If I need to do something in another alphabet entirely, then I will copy and paste from a PDF.)



Either way - as you pointed out, getting the actual punctuation out of a "dead" key is just a matter of pressing that key twice, or pressing the space bar next. 

I guess most people in other countries have a keyboard suited to their language, but programmers often use US keyboard since it has faster access to keys common to programming languages. I think X16 would get critical reviews in the USA if the only US like layouts are US International and Polish Programmers, where Polish Programmers is the best since it only has one dead key: ~. I'm Swedish and used US International in Windows for years since 1994 when I could (i.e. on non laptops and I brought my own keyboard to work), but I think United States (International) with AltGr dead keys is better and it also doesn't irritate native US keyboard users since the dead keys require Alt Gr. In Linux you start this with: setxkbmap us altgr-intl.

It's not built in to Windows, but e.g. this exists: https://github.com/thomasfaingnaert/win-us-intl-altgr

Now I mostly use UK keyboard in Linux with the layout setxkbmap gb which works rather well also for Swedish and many other languages since it is already international. For US keyboard I prefer EurKEY: https://eurkey.steffen.bruentjen.eu/

That the PETSCII mode has no dead keys is good, but e.g. Forth uses most ASCII characters that are not in PETSCII, and e.g. a light-weight PHP or Python (e.g. Snek) might be ported to X16 and that might need ISO8859-15

On 5/9/2022 at 5:05 PM, mobluse said:

That the PETSCII mode has no dead keys is good, but e.g. Forth uses most ASCII characters that are not in PETSCII, and e.g. a light-weight PHP or Python (e.g. Snek) might be ported to X16 and that might need ISO8859-15

Well, I'm just going to point out that they have the same dead keys already on their Windows, Macs, and Linux machines... so it should be no different on the CX16. 

I actually really appreciate that there will be an ASCII mode at all.  The fact that it also incorporates international character sets is a nice bonus.

 

On 5/10/2022 at 12:19 AM, TomXP411 said:

Well, I'm just going to point out that they have the same dead keys already on their Windows, Macs, and Linux machines... so it should be no different on the CX16.

Let me try it and see. '"~^ nope, all four live keys. They would be dead keys if I changed to an English International keyboard, but I would do that in a context where I wanted to use (at least some of) those characters as accent keys, such as typing pinyin pronounciation of Chinese words with the proper tone mark.

On 5/10/2022 at 2:42 PM, BruceMcF said:

Let me try it and see. '"~^ nope, all four live keys. They would be dead keys if I changed to an English International keyboard, but I would do that in a context where I wanted to use (at least some of) those characters as accent keys, such as typing pinyin pronounciation of Chinese words with the proper tone mark.

Nobody was discussing the US English layout. This entire thread is about international layouts, and all of them, that I'm aware of, have dead keys. 

 

There is only one master keyboard layout for the cx16, would you agree? (just teasing a little).

That being said, on this keyboard is a 40/80 button which does not seem to work properly. Not sure if this button was meant to switch between 40 and 80 columns automatically?

On 5/11/2022 at 12:46 PM, svenvandevelde said:

That being said, on this keyboard is a 40/80 button

I have enough trouble managing just two displays. 40 or 80 would be a real challenge! ?

On 5/11/2022 at 2:49 PM, TomXP411 said:

Nobody was discussing the US English layout. This entire thread is about international layouts, and all of them, that I'm aware of, have dead keys. 



 

I was referring to:

Quote

After boot, the US layout (EN-US) is active. Pressing the F9 key cycles through the keyboard layouts stored in ROM, in the following order:

Quote

EN-US

United States - International

00020409

00000409 is not in the list, so on standard name is available to select 00000409.  US - International is listed in the docs as the default keyboard, and US - International isn't supposed to have ~^"' as live keys (though I wouldn't be surprised if there are variants that require AltGr for them to act as dead keys).

And from the announcement of release 41 candidates:

On 5/7/2022 at 9:52 AM, Michael Steil said:

US layout is now US-International

So from that, the default US layout appears to be with dead keys for ~ ^ " ' replacing the version with those as live keys.

EN+US for US International and EN-US as US standard would allow a choice between the two (which one is the default is not what I am discussing).

On 5/11/2022 at 12:46 PM, svenvandevelde said:

There is only one master keyboard layout for the cx16, would you agree? (just teasing a little).



That being said, on this keyboard is a 40/80 button which does not seem to work properly. Not sure if this button was meant to switch between 40 and 80 columns automatically?

That's actually the Scroll Lock key, which would require special handling on Windows, which is probably why the emulator doesn't currently handle that well.  You can't just read the key press directly, because Scroll Lock isn't actually registered as a keypress through all of the APIs. (I honestly don't remember if it triggers KeyDown, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't trigger KeyPress in the Windows event stack.) It is available through certain events, but there's still some work to do in order to handle that key specifically. The same goes for RESTORE (the Print Screen key) and RUN STOP (the Pause/Break key.)

I expect that the 40/80 key will eventually work like the F4 key does now.

 

On 5/12/2022 at 8:26 AM, TomXP411 said:

I expect that the 40/80 key will eventually work like the F4 key does now.

Currently, it's a modifier key with state, like Caps lock. Maybe it should do exactly what F4 does, yes.

On 5/12/2022 at 12:36 AM, BruceMcF said:

So from that, the default US layout appears to be with dead keys for ~ ^ " ' replacing the version with those as live keys.

Yes, it's a problem that the default layout has something as important as the quote character as a dead key. r41rc2 will have a default keyboard with all live keys. ?