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Hi John, Eric,
I have just tested Edit v0.7d under a Win98 SE DOS
Box.
In fact, KEYB works differently. EDIT overrides
KEYB.
When I run "KEYB US" with cp850 or cp437, both
<Alt> keys work the same way.
Therefore, if I try <Alt> + <E> or
<Right_Alt> + <E>, both combinations access the "Edit"
menu.
However, when I run "KEYB US" with cp858 - when, by
the way, <Right_Alt> + <E> echoes the Euro sign - this is what
happens when I run EDIT v0.7d, Joe Cosentino's EDIT v0.82, Salvador Tropea's
SetEdit 0.5.4i and Owen Rudge's OSPlus Text Editor 2.1.1, all available at
the "Edit" section of the "Software" link at the FreeDOS homepage:
<Alt> + <E> accesses the "Edit" menu,
as expected.
<Right_Alt> + <E> neither accesses that
menu nor echoes the Euro sign.
I have also tried earlier versions (Joe's v0.81,
v0.8 and Eric's v0.7c).
Perhaps this is good news: It's not about FreeCOM
after all, because I tested the programs above under a Win98 SE DOS Box and they
behave the same as they do under FreeCOM.
Unfortunately, only MS-DOS EDIT is working as
expected.
Henrique
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1:32
PM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Right-ALT key
(topic was Customizing Startup Files)
Henrique,
Thanks for giving this a good going over and a
thorough explanation.
But I think the critical difference between your
testing and mine is that you are in a Win98 DOS box using MS EDIT and I am on
a pure FreeDOS machine using FD EDIT.
The reference to a multimedia keyboard is from
Lester Vedrox's post, to which I was responding. I'm not using such a
keyboard here, nor would I expect that to make any difference.
--John Hupp
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Right-ALT key (topic was Customizing
Startup Files)
Hi John,
I have just tested the US keyboard (under
MS-DOS EDIT) and the <Left_Alt> works just like
<Right_Alt>.
If you haven't prepared and selected any cp
(codepage), then you'll be using the character table implemented in the
BIOS of your VGA adapter which, on 99.999% of the cases, is identical (in
encoding) to FreeDOS (and MS-DOS, IBM-DOS and probably any other DOS) cp437
and that's why if you run KEYB under these conditions, it will work as if you
had prepared and selected that codepage. In that case, "KEYB US" should work
just like the US implementation of the keyboard BIOS extension.
If you have actually prepared and selected cp437 (or
cp850), "KEYB US" should still work just like the US implementation of
the keyboard BIOS extension.
The <Right_Alt> key only works differently
(i.e. like the <AltGr> key on international keyboards) if there's a
character associated to a given combination. If you're using cp858
(which is FreeDOS default), the <Right_Alt> key works as <AltGr>
only to <AltGr> + <5> and <AltGr> + <E>,
which display the Euro sign.
For all the other combinations, <Right_Alt>
remains the same as <Left_Alt>.
Therefore, as far as I can see it, KEYB not only
sticks to the commitment of being 100% MS-DOS compatible as well as it
enhances MS-DOS KEYB functionality, since it allows you to encode your own
layouts and even extra layers, such as, for example, combining keys with
<Shift> + <AltGr>.
All my KEY encodings and testings are under a
Win98 DOS Box. Perhaps KEYB behaves slightly different when working under
FreeCOM (and/or under FreeDOS EDIT).
(Definition of "KEY encodings": All the keyboard
layouts are encoded into *.KEY files.)
By the way, the issue of being a multimedia
keyboard won't probably have anything to do with that. All that happens is,
your multimedia keyboard has extra scancodes for its multimedia keys - which
aren't dealt with on standard KEY files so they'll remain "dead" unless
you run some program which handles them.
Henrique
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 10:23
AM
Subject: [Freedos-user] Right-ALT key
(topic was Customizing Startup Files)
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Customizing Startup
Files
Running US-Eng keyboard straight from BIOS (which is US anyways)
sounds
like a good idea but I still can't get the right ALT key
working. The
following approach didn't solve the problem either
(kb2pre4.zip):
LH KEYB US,,C:\FDOS\BIN\KEYBOARD.SYS
Maybe it's
because it's multimedia keyboard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lester,
Regarding Right-ALT, I brought up the same issue with FD
Service Release 1.
The understanding I finally arrived at was
that, though Right-ALT does not work in FreeDOS the same way it does
in MS-DOS in a default US installation, this behavior is nonetheless by
design. It stems from special uses of Right-ALT in international
keyboards, but special status for the key has been carried over into
the design of the default behavior and apparently even into the US
implementation of the keyboard BIOS extension.
I would still argue that the project's goal for
a "100% MS-DOS compatible" operating system means that, for US users,
Right-ALT should work the same as Left-ALT, but all-in-all, it is for me
a second-level issue.
I follow with one of Eric Auer's replies to me
from last year.
--John Hupp
------------------------------------------
> Yes, Right-ALT *always* behaves on my system as I describe
it.
> functionality I would expect under MS-DOS 6.22 with a US
keyboard layout:
> e.g. Right-ALT+F would open the File menu just at
Left-ALT+F does...
This is by design - EDIT must not tamper with right alt, as e.g.
German
keyboard drivers need right alt to be available to type country
specific
keys. I think there is no interface which would tell EDIT that
"I am an
US keyboard driver so I do not need right alt" (to allow EDIT to
use
right alt for function keys like alt-f). CCing Aitor about
that.
Note that I will be away from mail in the next weeks...
Aitor writes the KEYB driver, so maybe he knows more about that Alt
thing,
but I would generally recommend to use Alt for Alt, and not use
AltGr
(which is nothing more than right-Alt for US keyboards but which
has a
special meaning for international keyboards).
Basically if EDIT 0.82 treats right-alt-F like left-alt-F then that
would
be a bug which makes life hard for e.g. German users. Luckily there
is
EDIT 0.7d ;-).
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