(Sorry for the double posting, but I feel this is very on-topic for
ivrix)
On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Ilya Konstantinov wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 01:43:17AM +0200, Ariel Biener wrote:
> > Maybe no one got it the first time. I want to know if there is a kikbd
> > (international keyboard layout - if you remember from KDE 1.x) thing for
> > KDE 2. How does one write in hebrew there ?
>
> 1. Grab a normal Hebrew Xkb keymap.
> (http://www.galanet.net/~future/il would do)
http://linux.org.il/pub/Hebrew/Keymaps/il.symbols.xkb
is a bit more up-to-date. See below for technical details.
> 2. Copy it to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols
> 3. Run 'setxkbmap -variant basic -option grp:ctrl_shift_toggle il'
Why not '-variant il' ?
I would prefer grp:shift_toggle (both shifts to toggle). Look at the
linux-il faq to see how to set alt_shift_toggle (more recent versions of
XFree should already contain this one).
Read /usr/lib/X11/kxb/symbols/group to see some availble options (and see
/usr/X11/lib/X11/xkb/rules/xfree86 for the translation of htos "symbols"
to "options").
If you use a combination of Xlibs from XFree4 and XFree3 server then you
will possibly encounter an error message "setxkbmap Couldn't interpret
_XKB_RULES_NAMES property". setxkbmap failes to run here (even if you
explicitly defile '-rules').
This is the situation currently with my computer, and I couldn't figure to
what value should I set this property
> 4. Make applications recognize Hebrew keyboard symbols by setting
> LC_CTYPE=iw_IL environment variable prior to running them
I think that "he" or "he_IL" is the name (this is the locale name in
glibc. Besides, we speak Ivrit, not Iwrit. Right? ;)
> (you might want to set it globally).
> 5. Switch with Ctrl+Shift, or whatever you configured in the
> 'setxkbmap' command line.
>
> P.S. You might want to go over /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/en_US
> and cut out the lines with ISO9995-3 from en_US so it won't try
> to remap the number keys to European accents in the 2nd keyboard
> group (which's the Hebrew group in our "il" keymap).
Some elaboration here:
By default only one group ("keyboard layout") is used. therefore X, by
default, adds second group of semi-useful symbols.
There is a "us" symbols file that defines an american keyboard layout.
There is also "en_US" that includes "us", and adds those above-mentioned
iso9995-3 symbols.
Now this if fine if you don't need a second layout. However, if you do
need it, it only gets in your way, as it makes you remap all of the keys
(including numbers).
The default XFree Xkb rules file (rules/xfree86) has a set rules:
model=pc10x, variant=* => use symbols "en_US(pc10x)+$VARIANT)"
(the syntax is different, of course).
An obvious woraround is to change those rules to:
model=pc10x, variant=* => use symbols "us(pc10x)+$VARIANT)"
^^
e.g. (this time, with the correct syntax):
! model layout = symbols
...
pc104 * = us(pc104)+%l%(v)
A second approach would be to explicitly remap numbers etc. in the "il"
symbols file.
Since the first approach is unrealistic (it is good for languages which
need a second layout, but a bit bad for other languages. And since it is
slightly bad for the americans, it wouldn't work.
And I wouldn't expect anyone to start editing files under /usr .
Therefore I have to take the ugly solution and over-map symbols in the
"il" symbols file. This overrides any possible exiting non-us keyboard
setting which might have existed (think about british people).
Another change I did was that I renmved the remapping of the first group.
The fact that the second group is "Israeli" does not necessarily mean that
the first group is "ASCII" or "American", or whatever.
--
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
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