Re: Character list for European and Canadian use in the revised keyboard standard ISO/IEC 9995-3, supplementing MES-1

From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu Sep 18 2008 - 16:26:42 CDT

  • Next message: Karl Pentzlin: "Re: Character list for European and Canadian use in the revised keyboard standard ISO/IEC 9995-3, supplementing MES-1"

    On 9/18/2008 12:44 PM, Kent Karlsson wrote:
    > Asmus Freytag wrote:
    >
    >
    >>>>>> U+2264 LESS-THAN OR EQUAL TO - no own key needed, enter as:
    >>>>>> diacritical mark "combining macron below" + "less-than sign"
    >>>>>> U+2265 GREATER-THAN OR EQUAL TO - no own key needed, enter as:
    >>>>>> diacritical mark "combining macron below" + "greater-than sign"
    >>>>>>
    >
    > I agree that that suggestion is quite arcane.
    >
    >
    >> level. Typing
    >> < followed by = and having an IME sort out the desired style (with
    >> on-screen correction) is going to be a lot more user-friendly
    >> than using arcane key-combinations.
    >>
    >
    > But using altgr-'<' and altgr-'>' to generate suitable less-or-equal
    > and greater-or-equal characters would not at all be arcane IMO. I
    > think less-or-equal/greater-or-equal (whichever variant one chooses
    > for a particular keyboard layout) are that important. Much more
    > important on a keyboard than odd characters like AKTIESELSKAB and
    > TIRONIAN SIGN ET... Using an IME for the less-or-equal/greater-or-
    > equal would be technological overkill, I think.
    >
      If your keys have < or > engraved on them, then designating AltGR+>
    to invoke a variant of > makes at least intuitive sense (and one of the
    three forms of the greater than or equal symbol might be the most
    logical variant. The problem with pursuing the keyboard layout for
    subsets of technical and mathematical symbols is that it's restrictive.
    Each and every single character may be at the edge where it's common to
    some subgroup of users. But there's no way that you can get the keyboard
    layout to function as an intuitive input method for anything like a
    comprehensive set of these symbols.

    Meaning, anyone who actually needs these symbols commonly would need
    some other method anyway, which would be generically related to an IME.
    The subgroup of typist who needs only a few of these symbols will not be
    served well with a keyboard - unless the symbols have a sufficiently
    frequent occurrence as to allow people to train and retain whatever key
    sequence(s) they need.

    Further, customizing a keyboard layout to select a specific character
    for greater than or equal (there are three different ones in Unicode) is
    going to be more complicated than making a selection in an IME (most of
    which retain such choices). Users needing to type texts that follow
    different stylistic conventions would be better served with such a system.

    Mind you, I'm otherwise supportive of an attempt to increase the number
    of characters that can be accessed from standard keyboard layouts -
    current keyboards are unnecessarily limited, and, depending on the
    typing task, certain letters/symbols are too frequent to use
    ill-designed work-arounds like "pick a symbol from a list". However,
    there's a problem of trying to approach this problem only with a single
    solution. //If/ the /only/ tool /you have/ is /a hammer/, /you/ will see
    every problem as a nail...

    A./
    /
    > /kent k
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >



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