I'm wondering why we don't have third level choosers on OS'es like Ubuntu, Fedora, FreeBSD, and OpenSolaris... Should a person have to use Windows to get the Full Colemak Experience?
If an implementation isn't forthcoming, and explanation might suffice.. Is this something that would be desktop environment specific? Does X just not support such a thing? Would it conflict with something else? Is there a version we could test out that does include this functionality?
Could you tell me and other obumbrati what a third level chooser is? For the completeness of the topic, as it were.
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Absolutely, sorry about that. It occurred to me after I posted, but I had to go to class.
The degree sign, trademark sign, copyright sign, section sign, micro, so on and so forth.. The stuff you get with colemak on windows by hitting altgr+\ followed by a key..
Yeah on unix we don't have any of that right now..
Oh, I see. The xkbdmap I made had the "AltGr" in place but not the dead keys. I don't know how to make those, and I haven't made any console files. But it's certainly possible and only a matter of somebody wanting to do it. I'd be surprised if nobody have yet, in fact.
On the other hand, I don't use the same mappings as Shai does. I think they leave room for improvement, as does he himself. Maybe you just want the standard Unix mappings, except with a Colemak layout?
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*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***
We've got second level choosers. Dead keys and whatnot.
I have no clue what the standard unix mappings are.
I'm wondering why we don't have third level choosers on OS'es like Ubuntu, Fedora, FreeBSD, and OpenSolaris... Should a person have to use Windows to get the Full Colemak Experience?
I'm using Ubuntu 8.10. The third level choosers are disabled by default, but they are easily enabled.
System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layouts tab > Other Options > Third Level Choosers
X11 has always had an easier and more universal (layout-independent) way of inserting such special characters: the Compose key (or Multi key). This functionality can be mapped to special keys using XkbOptions, eg. compose:rwin or compose:menu. Entering eg. © becomes as easy as Compose+O+C.
Windows only has the numerical Alt keycodes, which are far more awkward to remember than Compose key sequences (eg. Alt+0169 for ©)
So on Windows you'd want special characters embedded in the keyboard layout (which is what Shai did), while there's not really a need to do that on X11.
