mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden>]

Hi Peter,

On 12 Jun 2016, at 16:34, Peter Rapcan <address@hidden> wrote:

Hey Max, 

Just three points: 

1. The method did work on texmacs (on a mac) some time ago (maybe this was the X window version, I don’t remember). It would still work (at least for the implemented accents) if the key combination did not include the SHIFT. Could you perhaps, in the “stock” texmacs for mac, simply change the default from SHIFT+Command to, say, Alt+fn (or even better just fn and alt+fn for variants, respectively? What I mean is something like fn+. followed by a for ȧ and Alt+fn+. followed by a for ạ). Of course it's nonsense to implement the whole unicode this way, but at least the most common European characters could perhaps be covered. 

I’m not an expert but I think the main files that control these matters are:

TeXmacs-1.99.4.app/Contents/Resources/share/TeXmacs/progs/text/text-kbd.scm

TeXmacs-1.99.4.app/Contents/Resources/share/TeXmacs/progs/texmacs/keyboard/prefix-kbd.scm

in particular in this last file I see the following scheme :

(when (like-macos?)

(kbd-wildcards pre

  ("macos" "M-" #t)

  ("std" "M-" #t)

  ("cmd" "C-")

  ("altcmd" "M-C-")

  ("special" "A-C-")

  ("copyto" "std C")

  ("cutto" "std X")

  ("pastefrom" "std V")

  ("accent" "M-" #t)

  ("structured:cmd" "A-")

  ("structured:move" "M-C-")

  ("structured:insert" "C-")

  ("structured:geometry" "M-A-"))

(kbd-wildcards

  ("escape" "A-" #t)

  ("escape escape" "C-" #t)

  ("escape escape escape" "M-" #t)

  ("escape escape escape escape" "noop" #t)

  ("S-escape" "M-A-" #t)

  ("S-escape S-escape" "A-C-" #t)

  ("S-escape S-escape S-escape" "M-C-" #t)

  ("S-escape S-escape S-escape S-escape" "noop" #t))

(kbd-map

  ("macos" "" "MacOS command")

  ("std" "" "MacOS command")

  ("A-" "" "MacOS option"))

) ;; end when (like-macos?)

so I imagine it is enough to change the line with

  ("accent" "M-" #t)

to something different. "Cmd-Shift" is translated into "M-“ (meta). These can be changed at will. Enjoy!!

2. The really appealing thing on this input method is the intuitiveness, e.g. using “ for a double dot accent like in ä, the ‘ symbol for the accent like in á, using the “most basic” US keyboard. Of course I can input characters normally by adding the appropriate keyboard layout but then I don’t need the alternative method at all. Moreover, I really liked (and used) the alternative method e.g. when citing someone with a, say, Turkish/Polish name in a scientific paper, which I need to do only occasionally. I understand that the ABC keyboard layout gives some additional freedom but I would prefer something that works independently of the keyboard layout. Of course, it’s just my opinion/preference ;-).

I understand. Another point of view for one-timers is just to copy the character from an unicode palette (which is available on OSX). This would work uniformly for any unicode character and would accomodate also people who have chinese coauthors. :) If one find himself to type quite frequently some accented char, then this is maybe the sign that she need to activate another input method. 

3. A nice solution, at least in the more recent OS X versions, could have been pressing and holding a key to chose letters variants (like in iOS) - that is, if only it worked in a logical way. Unfortunately, the Apple's implementation of this is, in my opinion, non-sensical: The symbol variants offered depend on the keyboard layout, e.g. you cannot input ľ using this method when US layout is chosen. You can, when e.g. the Slovak layout is chosen, but then, you don't need that alternative method at all. So, you have an alternative input option exactly when you don't need one :-). I wrote to apple to change this, but only god knows whether they will...

I agree that OSX solution is nice but can be perfected. I think one of the main reason that it works as it does is that, from the general point of view of the full unicode spectrum it is not clear what are the relevant characters that one would like to appear in the popup. Of course I understand your point, but this is very western-centric so it should be encoded in some preference (and we go back to input methods). It is not clear what will be the rigorous way to set up some preferred order on the glyphs which resembles an “a” and which should be shown in the popup in a language and culture agnostic way.

Again the unicode char palette has a way to set up “favorite” symbols. Also system-wise there are ways to define typesetting macros (like the ones which produce “  (fancy) quotations marks from typing " ). 

 

Best

Max

 

Cheers,

Peter. 

On 12 Jun 2016, at 10:27, Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden> wrote:

Peter, 

 I can see your point of being able to typeset accented characters also on machines on which we do not have complete control, however I think that implementing full support for unicode input in TeXmacs is not the right solution, even if it seems possible to get rid of glitches of the current method. You will have the same problem trying to write an email on the same system. The robust solution is to change the input method. 

As far as typing ä on your layout using Shift+Cmd shortcuts I see the problem: in TeXmacs you will have to type Shift+Cmd+” a , but  on the US keyboard the “ character can only be obtained via Shift+' as a result you are only able to type in Shift+Cmd+’ which then gives the wrong accent. Maybe we can add alternative shortcuts for the accents, like for example Shift+Cmd+u which will work nicely on any layout. 

Max

On 12 Jun 2016, at 09:47, Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden> wrote:

Command+shift is not systemwide (and actually I never used it to type accented chars...). Does some alt+char combinations work for you? On my machine they work even in TeXmacs 1.99.3. I think that if you want to have more possibilities you should add more input methods, for example “ABC Extended”, this is how the keyboard layout looks like when I press Alt. As you can see you can type most of the symbols. If in any event you want some Unicode glyph your keyboard is not able to type, then you can use the Character palette which also come with the input method menu on the status bar. You have to enable it in “Keyboard preferences” pane of System preferences.

Best

max

<abc-ext.tiff>

On 12 Jun 2016, at 02:44, Peter Rapcan <address@hidden> wrote:

Hey Max,

I am using version texmacs  v. 1.99.4 with look and feel set to default. When I press alt, the keyboard viewer shows the symbols you can see in the enclosed photo.

When I press command+shift (the combination I have to use in texmacs instead of alt), the keyboard viewer shows just unaltered US keyboard layout…

Best,

Peter.

On 12 Jun 2016, at 00:21, Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden> wrote:

Which version of TeXmacs are you using? I think you also have to set up the default look and feel in TeXmacs’ preferences.

On my machine  the behaviour of the dead keys does not depends on TeXmacs, as far as I understand. Input methods are a feature of the OS (at the same level of input of chinese or japanese character). If you manage to have the Keyboard Viewer on (a small window with the current keyboard layout, see attached image) you can see what are the dead keys when you hold Alt down. The choice of these keys are made at the OS level and in my opinion TeXmacs should not interfere with this.

Best

Max

<keyboard-viewer-and-tm.jpg>

On 11 Jun 2016, at 23:53, Peter Rapcan <address@hidden> wrote:

Max, thanks for checking this. Is there a way how to make this work the same way on the Mac? As I said, I have to use shift+command+char on my Mac and the shift part is killing a correct functionality. 

An additional comment: Is there a reason why the creators of texmacs did not choose Alt+. for ȧ and perhaps Alt+ctrl+. for ạ ? Would be more intuitive and in line with how other accents are intuitively typed this way...

Peter.

On 11 Jun 2016, at 23:37, Massimiliano Gubinelli <address@hidden> wrote:

I tried on the current svn texmacs on the Mac and one can typeset any accented character as expected. I’m using "ABC Extended” keyboard layout (I have an english keyboard) and accents can be produced via Alt+Char for the accent and then the character one wants accented. Eg. for ȧ one need to type Alt+w a, for ạ type Alt+x a, all the deadkeys can be found showing the keyboard viewer (to be set up in the Keyboard system preferences)

Max

On 11 Jun 2016, at 23:29, Peter Rapcan <address@hidden> wrote:

I remember that, some time ago, an alternative method to input accented characters worked in texmacs. Now I tried it and it seems to work only partially, at least for the current version of texmacs on a Mac. For example, shift+command+’ followed by o produces ó, shift+command+v followed by c produces č, etc. The trouble is that now I don’t know how to type e.g. ä using this method, since I would need to type shift+command+” followed by a, but the shift, being a part of the shortcut for ‘ , does not rise ‘ to “ as it normally would. Maybe this is a problem with standard Mac shortcuts taking precedence over texmacs shortcuts? 

I remember this used to work nicely though (and I remember the shortcuts did not include shift on my mac, so shift could be used normally to choose different accents, like ‘ or “). Maybe on Linux or Windows the shortcuts are different, so you could try typing something like alt+. followed by c to type ċ (if alt does not work try other special keys, maybe with shift also).

Anyway, this used to be a really nice and handy method to input accented characters, even in situations when you don’t have access to an international keyboard layout on some machine you were working on. 

Cheers,

Peter.

On 11 Jun 2016, at 01:57, Jarrad W. <address@hidden> wrote:

When typesetting non-ASCII characters into TeXmacs, I just use my normal input method, same as any other program on my PC. This works fine (I'm on Linux using US alt-intl with dead keys), though I have seen issues when I try to do this on Windows. How do you normally type Maltese characters in other apps?

Jarrad

On 11/06/16 05:25, Karl Hegbloom wrote:

I just successfully pasted those letters into TeXmacs and they appear with
the correct glyphs. Thus, it must be possible to typeset Maltese.

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 7:30 PM Tae Wong <address@hidden> wrote:

I found a typesetting package for Maltese by Paulseph-John Farrugia,
dated 2005-04-24.

How can I get TeXmacs to typeset Maltese documents?

According to the documentation for this package, Maltese uses ċ ġ ħ ż
as the letters with diacritics.

I just successfully pasted those letters into TeXmacs and they appear with the correct glyphs. Thus, it must be possible to typeset Maltese.

On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 7:30 PM Tae Wong <address@hidden> wrote:

I found a typesetting package for Maltese by Paulseph-John Farrugia,
dated 2005-04-24.

How can I get TeXmacs to typeset Maltese documents?

According to the documentation for this package, Maltese uses ċ ġ ħ ż
as the letters with diacritics.

<kbviewer.jpeg>