Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:08:44 +0200
From:      Erik Norgaard <norgaard@locolomo.org>
To:        nocturnal <nocturnal@swehack.se>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Alt Gr key troubles in FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <44BB539C.8090505@locolomo.org>
In-Reply-To: <44BB4253.50506@swehack.se>
References:  <44B20BC6.3050600@swehack.se> <44B266A3.9070309@locolomo.org> <44B2777B.5@swehack.se> <44B2CA13.2030804@locolomo.org> <44BB4253.50506@swehack.se>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
nocturnal wrote:

> I tried all the things you mentioned and i discovered that the problem 
> can easily be reproduced in any application. It's simply a matter of me 
> not letting go of the shift key fast enough. I reproduce it by typing 
> any number of characters in caps with the shift key down and then 
> directly switching to pressing the alt gr key and hitting the 8 
> character for example in order to produce the [ character on Swedish 
> keyboards. This is when the output becomes silent and nothing happens.

I don't think this is a bug, but rather a feature:

Some characters become available with the combination of Alt-Gr+shift, 
for example if you don't have a spanish keyboard, you can produce a '¿' 
with Alt-Gr+'?' but to get the '?' you may have to use shift as well. 
Same ting with '¡' and you will find that Alt-Gr+a produces a 'ª' while 
Alt-Gr+shift+a produces a 'º' ... IIRC.

That output becomes "silent" is simply a result of no character being 
located at the Alt-Gr+shift position on that key.

The only characters (I know) I haven't figured out how to type on my 
danish keyboard are ç (French, Portuguese ...) and · (Catalan).

So if someone complains, then just say that it's because they have the 
Babelfish keyboard layout :)

Anyway, I think that this behaviour may date back to old style keyboards 
where the Alt-Gr was a "compose character" and to avoid you having to 
press the fourth key with your nose, you could let go of the others.

Cheers, Erik
-- 
Ph: +34.666334818                      web: http://www.locolomo.org
X.509 Certificate: http://www.locolomo.org/crt/8D03551FFCE04F0C.crt
Key ID: 69:79:B8:2C:E3:8F:E7:BE:5D:C3:C3:B1:74:62:B8:3F:9F:1F:69:B9



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?44BB539C.8090505>