Pan-Sahelian keyboard project (French layout)

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 - 13:27:07 EST

  • Next message: Don Osborn: "Re: Pan-Sahelian keyboard project (French layout)"

    Here you'll find a tentative French-based Pan-Sahelian keyboard layout.
    - in Excel format:
    http://www.rodage.org/pub/French-Sahel.xls
    - as a PDF snapshot:
    http://www.rodage.org/pub/French-Sahel.pdf

    The layout uses AltGr and AltGr+Shift maps for non-African characters and it
    supports most of the European languages, with which Pan-Sahelian languages are
    used. The layout is fully compatible with an existing French keyboard layout
    (yes it has the Euro, and all French AltGr keys), to minimize the cost of
    building such keyboards, which could be distributed as a low-cost plate of
    plastic stickers to put on an existing French keyboard.

    It uses an "Afr" deadkey which can be entered prior to the African characters
    entered without the AltGr key. Some keyboards support a "Fn" key which could be
    used as a modifier (working like a second AltGr key).

    Two snapshots are displayed:
    - one simplified to just display the important characters in the AltGr and Afr
    maps. When a character has both a lowercase and uppercase version, only the
    lowercase is displayed centered vertically. This enhances the
    readability/usability of the keyboard (exactly like on classic keyboards where
    lowercase unaccented letters are showing only the uppercase version aligned
    vertically on the top).
    - the second snapshot shows the complete assignments. Unused positions are shown
    with a dark grey background.

    Some African keys are shown on a redish background (in the Excel version) for
    characters which must be composed in Unicode, and are still approximative and
    possibly candidates for addition in the Unicode standard. These keys cause
    problems for now, as it is not clear how these letters will be encoded in
    Unicode: as a combining sequence? The most problematic characters are those
    African letters with hooks.

    I'd like suggestions about these missing characters (sometimes only the
    lowercase letter is assigned not the uppercase one)...

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Feb 10 2004 - 14:17:29 EST