Re: Hexadecimal in many scripts (ISO 14755)

From: John Cowan (cowan@locke.ccil.org)
Date: Mon Jun 07 1999 - 10:32:16 EDT


Mark Davis wrote:

> 1. Hex input. [...]
> 2. Name input. [...]

These are fine, but what if your keyboard is strictly Arabic, and
has neither Latin letters nor European digits?

> 4. Another method is to have a pop-up insert-symbol box, something like
> the Windows Character Map.

That becomes a rather substantial application if it's going to
handle all the characters, or even all the symbol characters,
in Unicode easily. It will have to provide searching as well
as browsing, and then the no-Latin-letters problem resurfaces.

> I'm afraid that the ISO keyboard standard method just doesn't hold up to
> real, live usage.

Remember that it defines a minimum, not a maximum, standard.
The idea is that *all* keyboards should be able to cope with
this, so that you can enter random Unicode characters when
necessary even without a smart keyboard.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)



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