Re: Mode_switch in Emacs

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> As I can see, everything works fine in CVS Emacs already.  The Mode_switch
>>> key temporarily disables the russian layout while it is held in Emacs.
>>> Perhaps something is wrong in Paul's configuration where Mode_switch
>>> doesn't work correctly.
>> 
>> Does that hold for XIM russian layout or for LEIM russian layout or
>> for both?

> For XIM russian layout.

OK.  So I guess I misunderstood Paul (or he has a different config
in which this doesn't work, in which case he should clarify).

> If the LEIM russian input method is enabled in Emacs, I think it is too
> much to ask Emacs to temporarily disable the input method while
> Mode_switch is held.

It's not high-priority, but I think it would be good if it could be made
to work.

> As I understand even XEmacs doesn't try to do this.

XEmacs doesn't always do "more".

> I see no reason to activate both XIM russian layout and LEIM russian
> input method in Emacs.

I hope we indeed all agree on this one ;-)

Tho now that you mention it, I'm wondering: how do people deal with the
situation where their keyboard is cyrillic and they want to use one of
Emacs's input methods (which are all based on latin chars)?

> Somewhere С-ц may be preferable to C-w, but at least in Emacs I think
> interpreting С-ц as C-w is more natural.  However, this is still not
> very useful in Emacs because it will enable only key sequences with
> control/meta modifiers, but not with raw letters.  I.e. what good is
> to process С-ц as C-w, if `C-x b' will produce useless `C-x и'?

Oh boy! that's a very good point indeed.  It basically means we should
postpone the decision whether to translate b into и to much later.

Now how does all the above look in the case of XIM input methods that map
multi-key sequences to chars (typically for asian scripts)?


        Stefan