On Fri, 07 Aug 2015 09:26:56 -0700 "Doug Ewell" <d...@ewellic.org> wrote:
> Michael Kaplan, author of MSKLC, reports that not only is the limit on > UTF-16 code points in a Windows keyboard ligature still 4, it is > likely to remain 4 for the foreseeable future: > > http://www.siao2.com/2015/08/07/8770668856267196989.aspx It's good to see he's still with us. > "People who want input methods capable of handling more than four > UTF-16 code points really need to look into IMEs (Input Method > Editors) which are all now run through TSF (the Text Services > Framework), a completely different system of input that allows such > things, admittedly at the price of a lot of complexity." What we're waiting for is a guide we can follow, or some code we can ape. Such should be, or should have been, available in a Tavultesoft Keyman rip-off. In the mean time, I notice Micha Kaplan's comment: "even if there were, such a keyboard layout would not be compatible with any prior version of Windows;" I think that is exactly what Marcel Schneider encountered. Note further that Micha implied that he got the specification by reading a header file, exactly the sort of documentation you disallowed. The data structure (field cbLgEntry) allows for arbitrary lengths; its precise semantics may have been established by experiment. It is possible that it may have been broken for arbitrary sizes and has now been fixed. > This should settle the matter. MSKLC doesn't seem to be liked by Microsoft. Quite possibly they would like to get rid of the interface its keyboards generate. Supporting such user-defined keyboards may just be an overhead for them. Any comment from the Microsoft employees? Richard.