[SailfishDevel] Accent with maliit keyboard

Pekka Vuorela pekka.vuorela at jolla.com
Mon Dec 2 15:21:28 UTC 2013


On Mon, 2013-12-02 at 15:03 +0100, Damien Caliste wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>    Sorry for the double posting, I messup with my emails, please prefer
> to use this one when replying to me…
> 
>    I'm wondering after using the virtual keyboard in the emulator if
> typing accents will be convenient or not.
> 
>    Currently, it seems to me that accents are reachable by a long press
> on the letter then, by clicking on the accented one (e.g. long press on
> "e" then one can choose "é", "è", "ê"…).
> 
>    I don't like much long press because it breaks the typing flow. In
> French we have a lot of accents that have a meaning ("même" is same,
> but "mémé" is grandma, while "meme" is nothing), so one can imagine
> that typing "mémé" will be long, quick press on "m", long press on "e",
> quick press on "é"…
> 
>    On the N900, the hardware keyboard uses a compose key, or fn key, I
> don't knwo how to call it. It works like the "shift" key, one quick
> press and next quick press will be for the alternative symbol of the
> key. Two quick press on the fn key, and keyboard is locked for
> alternative symbols. Very convenient. I can type grandma ("mémé") very
> quickly, by doing a quick press on "m", a quick press "fn" and a quick
> press on "l" (which has the "é" as alternative symbol)… So, with only
> quick press I'm typing words very quickly like that, without rythm
> changes.
> 
>    So, would it be possible to add a compose key to the Maliit keyboard
> layout of Nemo/Sailfish, that would act like the shift key ? Currently
> after a quick press on the shift key, the layout changes to capitals.
> I imagine a quick press on this compose key, and the layout would switch
> to alternate symbols, displaying all the funny French (or Vietnamese or
> else) symbols like é, à, ç, ù, É, À…
> 
>    I try to read the Maliit documentation, or give a look to
> configuration files on the emulator, but I went nowhere. Can someone
> who's expert on Maliit can give me some pointers on how to do this ?
> I'm not afraid with writing code if any or recompile things, or even
> need to use my own plugin if not accepted upstream.

I assume you are here talking about Sailfish keyboard. It's layout
system is its own. Maliit only covers lower levels for communicating
with the application, hosting keyboard plugins, etc. Thus removed rest
of the mailing lists. 

Dead key support exists and is used for italian, spanish and polish
keyboards at the moment. However, on those there's a single character
that's used with the dead key, e.g. "e" -> "é".

What you ask is more difficult, e could become é, è, ê or ë. As
conventional dead key that would require four buttons. French layout has
space for maybe two more buttons, but then it's a compromise whether to
have larger buttons or cover part of the accents.




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