[haiku-development] Re: AltGr Key, key_map, and the US-International Keyboard

  • From: "Ingo Weinhold" <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:35:36 +0200

John Scipione wrote:
> >> Now that I've done all this work... I have to pose the question. Why
> >> not just use Option/Win Key to get additional characters? Why do you
> >> need the AltGr key in the first place? Since Option exists and is
> >> mappable, why not just use it?
> >
> > I'd say because a) there's no need for two AltGr's on the keyboard (even if
> > you call them Opt) and b) for system shortcuts (not sure why you want us to
> > forget them).
> 
> Why is there no need to have 2 AltGr's on your keyboard? One on the
> left, one on the right just like Command and Control.

I think there would be a need to have two of those keys on the keyboard. It 
definitely disagrees with good touch typing practice to have the modifier and 
the key to combine it with on the same half of the keyboard. Particularly the 
keys in the number row are a bit awkward to press.

> Other than that
> is not now it works on Windows, why not?

I think that is the main point. If you use another OS regularly -- and I'm 
convinced most Haiku users do -- these kinds of differences suck (which is the 
sole reason why the Alt/Ctrl switch setting exists). I don't use AltGr, so I 
leave it to others to give their opinion on how much it would suck.

> And as far as system
> shortcuts go, I'm not convinced that we need to devote an entire key
> to using them, we could easily implement them a different way.

I suppose so. Provided there's a way for users to change the global and the 
per-application shortcuts it isn't all that problematic anyway.

CU, Ingo

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