Darren Kenny-san wrote (06/30/08 06:20 PM): > Brian Cameron wrote: >> Brian: >> >> > The IIIMF applet is already in OpenSolaris and though it doesn't >> > appear to link xklavier, it's keyboard layout tab says: >> > >> > "Use autodetect (does not work in remote environment)" >> > >> >> The keyboard switcher applet uses xmodmap if libxklavier is not >> available, so I would bet it is building with this configuration. > > I believe that IIIMF uses the XKB Extension, but it is only run when the > user's > locale supports switching (e.g. it's not run with using C or iso8859-15), but > it > is if the user runs a UTF-8 based locale.
AFAIK, IIIMF uses ioctl(2) to get the console keyboard. http://cvs.opensolaris.org/source/xref/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/cmd/kbd/kbd.c#get_layout My understanding is most of the functionalities of KeyboardLayoutSwitcher are available with IIIMF at present. Thanks, fujiwara > > The reason for the inability to auto-detect is more down to access to the > keyboard hardware which provides it's layout (at least with USB), but even at > that I'm sure there are problems - e.g. on Macbooks the layout is very > different > to most PC type keyboards, even though it's meant to be an ISO standard, which > doesn't appear to be supported all that well even in XKB. > >> The xmodmap interfaces are also not standard across different >> Xservers, so you can have the same sorts of problems using it >> in this mode as with using libxklavier. > > Yes, xmodmap is a problem, and it's the no. 1 reason that we don't use it on > Solaris since by default on Sparc systems using Xsun the preferred and more > consistent XKB extension is off by default. > > I think if we had Xsun enable XKB by default we could start using the existing > GNOME keyboard applets and associated code/libs if we wish. > >>> Does iiim also rely on private X APIs? What is the relationship >>> between IIIM and KeyboardLayoutSwitcher applet? Would >>> KeyboardLayoutSwitcher provide redundant functionality which is already >>> provided by IIIM? I think a keyboard switcher would be very useful, >>> (the fact that we got so many trouble calls on odd combinations of >>> keyboards and Xservers tells me that many people were using it!) > > There does appear to be overlap, but I'll be honest in admitting I've not had > much need for either in the past, but now using my MacBook as my main platform > I'm finding more keyboard issues due to Mac's layout being so different and > not > as well supported in Xorg's XKB mappings as PC keyboards - so plugging in > different USB keyboards results in more miss-mapped keys than before when > using > a PC style laptop. > > I think that this type of keyboard layout selection is not handled by IIIM > which > is most focused on locale layout changes. > >> I'm not very familiar with IIIM. I'd bet if you asked Takao, that >> he could provide some perspective here. > > I'm sure that the Takao and his team would be best placed to comment on > this... > >>> I wonder if it is possible to do this in a supportable way and provide >>> an interface at least as intuitive as what Sun and Apple had years ago >>> (e.g. Solaris 7): http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/805-4123/6j3tmpc73?a=view >> I suspect it would be, but there's probably not an easy, quick solution. >> To do this properly, this would likely be a cross-consolidation project. >> Therefore, it would likely require a high enough priority to get some >> commitment from the different teams that would need to be involved. Or >> perhaps the open source community will solve this problem in the >> meantime. > > I think we have a choice - either enhance IIIM to always run and support > changing of varied layouts (many of which are already described for XKB) in > each > locale (e.g. MacBook, PC, etc.), or port the existing GNOME stack - but I > have a > feeling that this also depends on HAL work for identifying the keyboards > (based > on observations on the patches sent to the HAL mailing list for such things). > > Thanks, > > Darren. >
