Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdragon!violet!gjditchfield
From: gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: KeyCaps and accents
Keywords: probable bug
Message-ID: <4579@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 12 Jan 88 15:32:38 GMT
References: <4523@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <795@ur-tut.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield)
Distribution: comp
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 41

In article <795@ur-tut.UUCP> syap@tut.cc.rochester.edu.UUCP (James Fitzwilliam) writes:
>In article <4523@watdragon.waterloo.edu> gjditchfield@violet.waterloo.edu (Glen Ditchfield) writes:
>>
>>I think the recent postings about accented characters show that the KeyCaps
>>DA doesn't handle dead keys correctly.
>>
>>If you bring up KeyCaps and type option-`, the option and ` keys in the
>>keyboard diagram briefly turn black, but nothing else happens.  In
>>particular, the keys which will be accented do not change.  For instance,
>>the "a" key square keeps showing "a", when it should change to
>>"a-overstrike-`".  [I should have said "a-with-an-`".]
>
>As far as I know, KeyCaps was always meant to work that way, i.e. the
>same way the keyboard does (or what good is it?)  When you type option-`,
>of course nothing happens, since that keystroke cannot generate a value
>until you tell what character you're accenting. ... If you type
>option-` THEN a (or e, or u) you'll get the right thing in the bar.

My point exactly.  KeyCaps _doesn't_ work the same way the keyboard does.
If I type option-`, the "a" key square in the KeyCaps window continues to
display an "a".  But if I actually press the "a" key, I do not get an "a"
character in KeyCap's text line;  I get "a-with-`".  When a "dead key"
combination like option-` is pressed, the key squares for all of the keys
which are affected by that "accent" should display the "accented" version
of the character, and they should keep displaying them until a character is
generated.

For most fonts, this may not seem important.  If you want to find the set
theory symbols that are hidden as accented characters in Symbol font, this
is essential.

>Really all KeyCaps is for is to remind you whether "bullet" is
>option-8 or option-b, whether circumflex is option-i or option-u,
>without having to poke the whole damn keyboard blindly.

If it worked the way I want it to, it would also remind you where "logical
not" is in Symbol font.  It would also remind you which accent-character
combinations exist.  My (rather old) Mac manual tells me which option keys
generate accents, but it doesn't tell me which keys those option keys affect.
Last week I did "poke the whole damn keyboard blindly" to make up a list
of dead key combinations so I could see what they generated in Symbol font.