roland Posted August 17, 2003 Report Share Posted August 17, 2003 hi, After one year and half of Linux i'm still not used to the way the keyboard is configured for the case control on Linux. That's may be because I use Windows at work. On Windows: Cap Lock key => upper case, Shift key => lower case. On Linux: Cap Lock key toggle the case, Shift key reverses the curent case mode while pressed. Is there a way to configure Linux keyboard same as Windows for case control ? roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted August 17, 2003 Report Share Posted August 17, 2003 I'm confused about what you are saying. Both of those sound the same to me and I don't see a difference between Windows and Linux as far as that goes. Can you give an example? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted August 18, 2003 Report Share Posted August 18, 2003 Sounds the same to me too. If your Caps Lock key is on, obviously the shift key is going to produce lowercase. If Caps is off, Shift will produce an uppercase letter. That is how my Mandrake (and Windows at work) have always worked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2003 Sounds the same to me too. If your Caps Lock key is on, obviously the shift key is going to produce lowercase. If Caps is off, Shift will produce an uppercase letter. That is how my Mandrake (and Windows at work) have always worked. ???? :?: Hi, You gave me a doubt .. I have to say I'm using french keyboard. I tried a US keyboard at the factory ( an industrial one ) and it seems it reacts on Windows the same it reacts on the PC's I tried on Linux .. the same as on XT keyboard if I remember well. That can explain why I confused you .. Anyway: IMO Linux keyboard needs to react the same as Windows/DOS keyboard whatever langage isn't it ? - for you, using US keyboard and still have Windows/DOS, can you please check below that your keyboard reacts like Linux on Windows/DOS ? - for the few if any that use french keyboard here, please can you check i'm right ? After that i'm going to send to Mandrake a feature report if I can. to be sure I'm going to explain _very_ well ( I hope ) 1) All PC's I've used with Windows/DOS, since AT ( plenty ;-) ): - case is lower case - I press Shift key=> case mode becomes UPPER CASE - I release Shift key => case mode back to lower case - I press & release Caps Lock key => case mode becomes UPPER CASE - I press Shift key=> stay UPPER CASE - I release Shift key => case mode back to lower case . . . 2) All PC's I've used & configured with Linux ( a few: 4 ), same as XT if I remember well: - case is lower case - I press Shift key=> case mode becomes UPPER CASE - I release Shift key => case mode back to lower case - I press Caps Lock key => case mode becomes UPPER CASE - I press Shift key=> case mode becomes lower case - I release Shift key => case mode back to UPPER CASE - I press Caps Lock key => case mode back to lower case . . . cheers roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPanic Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 Hi! You are right. European keyboards (like my German one) and the European keyboard drivers and keymaps of Windows do things in a different way then US Windows / Linux PCs. I think that's because of the typewriter history, but never mind... Perhaps this can be reconfigured, but as I'm an intermediate newbie, I don't know how, either. To all Linux developers out there: Europeans are used to a different Keyboard handling... Please install that :) By the way: You can change your Windows to the way the US keyboards and Linux keyboards work in the Windows Control/Setup Keyboard... At least with the German Windows... So you could get used to the Linux behaviour on both platforms. Cya, PeterPanic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 For the record I'm currently using a DANISH KEYBOARD. When I shift ill put a <s> and when I Caps lock a <CL> etc. So nothing pressed <CL> BUT NOW CAPS LOCK <S> is that shift puts it back to miniscule: </S> AND WHEN I RELEASE BACK TO MAGISCULE. </CL> I can still type æø æ etc. I think the French Keyboard is particularly problematic. If yuo look at a Norwegian one or Swedish/Danish all the non-extended letters are in the The same place as a US or UK one. the numbers at the top are the same (i.e. No shift to get them) The extra Scandanvian keys ÆÅØ are located seperately. Actually Æ is where the M would be on a French keyboard and to the right of the L on a US keyboard. IMHO I think its about time we standardised keyboards, perhaps the reason the French Linux and French Wondows don't behave the same is because the linux one was copied from the UNIX one and the unix one was defined for programming. I still have a terrible time trying to programme on a Windows French keyboard, or even use vi. The programming languages use keys which are easy to press on american keyboards .... So why do i use a Danish one ??? well I worked in Norway but since the Norwegains can't even decide on a single keyboard (they have a Bøkmål one and a Nynørsk one) I refused to use them. At least the Danish one is a standard, it has all the keys i needed etc. €€€ included. But in the end there is no reason ALL the Scandanavian countries couldn't use a single Keyboard. All we are doing with regional keyboards is hanging onto a legacy from typwriters..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPanic Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 Of course, but where do you put the international characters on your "standard" keyboard? German, French, Scandinavian, Turkish, and of course languages with completely different fonts (Russian, Greek) or even amount of letters (Corean, Tibetan, Chinese,...) ? I guess we'll continue having different keyboards (OK, yu're right, the /, , |, <, >, [, ] are at hard places on the European keyboards...) - Perhaps a row of special characters above the numbers could help. These should be freely configurable... Well, as I'm not a designer for keyboards I guess I'll just stop thinking about it... Or perhaps mail to a designer... :-) Cya. PeterPanic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 25, 2003 Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 Hey, that was what I thought. I like the Scandanavian ones because they at least don't move the letters around. the regional ones are at one side but there are only 3 of them I guess they have to be OK for typing too. I think the best way is to have a common keyboard with areas for latin extended charecters like French/Spanish accented letter, umlauts etc. For non latin its difficult. Turkey made a big step switching to the latin alphabet ... I guess they would consider changing the keyboard trvial compared to that! Germany also made a lot of effort. Most street signs are Strasse now arn't they?? The problem is a lot of peope get all heated over it.... Take the cyrillic keyboards.... It would be sensible to use the Russian one because they are the most widely used. All the beurocracy of the Former Sovier Union used them. But then the Ukrain will object and Azeri has lots of regional letters that don't exist in russian and they seem keen to increase them every year :-( Greek is a dilema .... heck we even put it on the Euro.... Arabic should be possible.... the only thing I don't have a clue about is Chinese and Japanese. Still, if the US and Europe could agree we would be closer .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 25, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 25, 2003 IMHO I think its about time we standardised keyboards ... year: it seems to me natural everybody adopt the french keyboard don't you think so ;-) roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 My drop in the river... Back when we used typewriters (not computers), the 'shift' key made the whole collection of "hammers" (sorry, I don't know the word, even in French) go down so that the other set of characters would be used (upercase and set 2 of special characters). As you released it of course, the whole would go up again so that the first set of characters would be used (lowercase and set 1 of special characters). For convenience, a small key was added above the 'shift' key; when you pressed it, it locked the collection of "hammers" down. Let's call it a 'general lock'. To unlock this key, you had to press the 'shift' key. Back to the present. Here in France, Windows 9x does the same. When 'CapsLock' is pressed, the whole keyboard (excluding modern keys: arrows, Fxx...) works differently. It seems the USA decided to do it differently. I had an Atari before (a US company), and: - when 'CapsLock' was pressed, only letters were changed, not special characters, - when 'CapsLock' was on, 'shift' would only change the letters as long as you pressed it; 'CapsLock' made the change definitive. That's how Linux works: like the Atari. I don't know why, even in France, Microsoft decided to change this behaviour for NT and W2K: - when 'CapsLock' is pressed, even the numbers change to special characters and the other way around ! - when 'shift' is reverses the current case, even for numbers! To conclude, I prefer the Atari/Linux way, even though it is different from the typewriter way. The Win9x way is at least logical, when you look at history, and I use it without too much problems. But the WinNT way.... I can't believe the WinNT keyboard driver is not reported as a bug :!: Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted August 26, 2003 Report Share Posted August 26, 2003 I don't really care what we standardise on so long as we standardise :D In practive I don't think the French version is the best latin model becuase of the extra charecters. In my 'perfect world' I'd keep the 26 (7bit ACSII) as a base and then have a seperate set of keys for regional characters. Our keyboard use has changed considerably since the typewriter. Le petit escargot is now one of the most frequent keys allong with // and the # which is pretty universally a comment. (ESC :wq! is pretty important to me:D) We have American keyboards for the UNIX workstations at work and French for windows. Most of the UNIX sysads refuse to change to French keyb even though they are French. The Italians maange a pretyty consistent keyboard so why not the French. Its only history of a mechanical machine with the letters arranged to stop the 'mallets' jamming. If you take someone in Belgium (or Canada) they have two radically different keyboards. If they then go to work in France they have yet another one. Our email software can't handle it (Lotus notes) I end up with re: ruf:re:ruf ... because it can't handle the e' (sorry American keyb :D) Most French programmers I know prefer to use a US keyboard for programing because the common keys are located more conveniently.... I'm stuck in the middle: I can't try a decent email in French becuase of the lack of accented characters but I don't want to risk a mess up in vi when Im editing a config file on a server....A lot of work is done semi blind ... i.e. the server is in Angola or Malaysia and I don't get a response via telent for a second or so so I end up typing ahead. What I'd like is a keyboard that lets me switch regional charecters without adding or detracting from my base. I'd be happy to loose the UK keyboard in the interests of standardisation .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted August 29, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2003 Hi! You are right. European keyboards (like my German one) and the European keyboard drivers and keymaps of Windows do things in a different way then US Windows / Linux PCs. I think that's because of the typewriter history, but never mind... Perhaps this can be reconfigured, but as I'm an intermediate newbie, I don't know how, either. I'm quite a intermediate newbie too ( and may stay so: Mandrake is so easy ;-) ) but I don't think it is simple yet ( already tried with KDE and X86Config. Worse, if I understand well, there is 2 different driver for console mode and X mode ( X has it's own keyboard driver ). I once had a silly password that worked under X and doen't on X .... To all Linux developers out there: Europeans are used to a different Keyboard handling... Please install that :) Who do a feature request first me or you ? I think it is better both. Start at 10h30 pm monday. The first who did it is the winner.;-) By the way: You can change your Windows to the way the US keyboards and Linux keyboards work in the Windows Control/Setup Keyboard... At least with the German Windows... So you could get used to the Linux behaviour on both platforms. Unfortunately I have sometime to work on other PC's than mine. roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPanic Posted September 5, 2003 Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 10h30 pm monday Which monday? :P By the way ... Yesterday I bought a cordless keyboard. Most of them (mine, too) don't have ShiftLock/ScrollLock/NumLock - LEDs, because they want to save power. So you get a keyboard driver with them (Windows), which displays Symbols for these LEDs in the System Tray. 1) The ShiftLock-Symbol changes as if it was on a US Keyboard :-) That's quite confusing, as it always displays things that aren't true at all ... :roll: 2) Is there a tool like that for Linux, too? (KDE, Gnome and WindowMaker are my main interests...) ? 3) My new keyboard has "Special Multimedia buttons" which are used for Browser functions and similar things under Windows.... How can I configure them under Linux? Can I make them work for special Characters (Slash, Backslash, @, |, or even whole Keyboard macros) under Linux? Thanks, bye, Peter Panic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roland Posted September 5, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 10h30 pm monday Which monday? :P Last monday ..... but you still have your chance: I tried almost half a hour but I was unable to find where I can ask for a feature request. So I gave up thinking that one day I will ask the question here. For the rest of your post: sorry can't help at all. roland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 2) Is there a tool like that for Linux, too? (KDE, Gnome and WindowMaker are my main interests...) ?Just so that you don't loose hope, I can tell you it exists, because I'm sure I've read about that somewhere (more than once), but I don't remember where (I don't have such a keyboard...)3) My new keyboard has "Special Multimedia buttons" which are used for Browser functions and similar things under Windows.... How can I configure them under Linux? Can I make them work for special Characters (Slash, Backslash, @, |, or even whole Keyboard macros) under Linux?Try and see on my website if it helps you. Don't hesitate to send me an email, or a PM on this board. I'm not quick to answer (I don't have much time...), but I do eventually :) Bye, Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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