Introduction of a "type mode" and an "unicode mode" of input

[Jaroslaw Staniek]

On 3 July 2016 at 11:58, René J.V. <rjvbertin at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sunday July 03 2016 11:28:28 Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
>
> >On a GUI level: There's KDE GUI for that (there are many equivalents):
> >https://utils.kde.org/projects/kcharselect/
>
> Does that have a KF5 equivalent yet?
>

​Nope and for a reason. In my imagination KF5 is not a kitchen sink like
kdelibs were; each library of KF5 is now much more light and potentially on
its way to Qt if that's beneficial for the communities. I see that
KCharSelect is a very special, rarely used for some general purpose, it's a
tool widget, that's it.
It is there for use at the OS' workspace level. It does not abstract
anything or (as already mentioned) acts as an input method.
​


>
> >It's not the input method so someone needs to turn that input method. As
> >you can see in the KCharSelect app, selection of unicode range is a
> >function of given font - different ranges are supported by different
> fonts.
>
> FWIW, I think OS X has something like this on the OS level, available if
> you activate the keyboard selection menu and the corresponding option
> (there's also a keyboard viewer). Those keyboard and character viewer
> options open the equivalent of floating dock windows attached to the
> application active when you evoke the feature. The character viewer allows
> you to browse all known Unicode ranges and will show the glyphs from
> installed fonts that have the selected Unicode key, plus known variants.
> And of course allow to input the glyph in question.
>
> So yeah, it's up to the OS or desktop environment to provide such a
> feature...
>
> Preferences to select which font to use for which Unicode range can make
> sense, but IMHO more in applications like web browsers that can encounter
> just about any kind of content conceivable and that aren't designed to
> *create* _coherent_ documents.
>
> R.
>


​Yes the challenge discussed is ​addressed by operating systems at their
level. Even mobile OSes of course.
Only minimal installations like MS DOS or embedded systems address it at
the application level if that is what the app author wants and pays for.

-- 
regards, Jaroslaw Staniek

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: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek
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