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Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:13 pm
by richmond62
So: most of the time use the MacOS US English keyboard layout, occasionally I use the GB English keyboard layout, ad about 20% of the time I use the Bulgarian Phonetic keyboard layout.
I do exactly the same sort of thing on Xubuntu Linux.
Now, in languages such as Lazarus there is a nifty command:
Now were that sort of thing available in OXT it should be able to populate an instack virtual keyboard with buttons mirroring the end-user's physical keyboard.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:37 pm
by richmond62
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 6:57 pm
by tperry2x
Please can you try this, and if it works, we could make a custom function quite easily:
Code: Select all
on mouseUp
put the platform into tPlatform
if tplatform contains "mac" then
put "/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'print " & QUOTE & "AppleSelectedInputSources:0:KeyboardLayout Name" & QUOTE & "' /Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist" into tCmd
put shell(tCmd) into tResult
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
else if tplatform contains "win" then
put "powershell -command Get-WinUserLanguageList" into tLayout
put shell(tLayout) into tResult
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
else if tplatform contains "lin" then
put "setxkbmap -query" into tCommand
put shell(tCommand) into tResult
filter lines of tResult with "layout:*"
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
end if
end mouseUp
- example.png (56.84 KiB) Viewed 997 times
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:12 pm
by richmond62
- Screenshot 2024-10-25 at 22.09.56.png (257.56 KiB) Viewed 992 times
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I wish life were that simple.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:16 pm
by tperry2x
Hahahah, what the heck is ABC for a layout name?
I'll have to try experimenting with other layouts!
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:29 pm
by tperry2x
Ah, my fault. I left off the tilde ~
Try adjusting it to read:
Code: Select all
on mouseUp
put the platform into tPlatform
if tplatform contains "mac" then
put "/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'print " & QUOTE & "AppleSelectedInputSources:0:KeyboardLayout Name" & QUOTE & "' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist" into tCmd
put shell(tCmd) into tResult
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
else if tplatform contains "win" then
put "powershell -command Get-WinUserLanguageList" into tLayout
put shell(tLayout) into tResult
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
else if tplatform contains "lin" then
put "setxkbmap -query" into tCommand
put shell(tCommand) into tResult
filter lines of tResult with "layout:*"
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
end if
end mouseUp
- bulgarian-test.png (80.18 KiB) Viewed 980 times
Fingers crossed...
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:05 am
by OpenXTalkPaul
tperry2x wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 7:29 pm
on mouseUp
put the platform into tPlatform
if tplatform contains "mac" then
put "/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'print " & QUOTE & "AppleSelectedInputSources:0:KeyboardLayout Name" & QUOTE & "' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist" into tCmd
put shell(tCmd) into tResult
answer "Current Keyboard Layout: " & tResult
else if tplatform contains "win" then
There's probably a few ways to do this on macOS.
Here's a similar shell command that uses the 'defaults' tool (and grep), instead of PListBuddy to parse the key/value from the same file (com.apple.HIToolbox.plist):
Code: Select all
defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist AppleSelectedInputSources | egrep -w 'KeyboardLayout Name' |sed -E 's/^.+ = \"?([^\"]+)\"?;$/\1/'
Result:
U.S.
changed to British in System Settings result:
British
Of course you'd have to also do the quoted or escaped form of that for using that with shell() function.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 9:33 am
by richmond62
Ouch:
Many a tilde twixt cup and lip.
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- Screenshot 2024-10-26 at 12.32.10.png (408.86 KiB) Viewed 883 times
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MacOS 12
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:00 am
by richmond62
My main desire is NOT really to work out what sort of keyboard layout an end user is using
Ding An Sich, but to do something like this:
Warning: pseudocode:
Code: Select all
on rawKeyDown RD
switch RD
case "100"
put the glyph for my keyboard layout that overlays that rawKeyCode into field "K100"
break
--- and so it goes
end switch
end rawKeyDown
BUT: automated, so that end users could see a 'chart' a bit like this:
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- Screenshot 2024-10-26 at 13.01.50.png (88.78 KiB) Viewed 869 times
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that would "automagically" reflect the end-user's current keyboard layout inwith an OXT stack.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:07 am
by richmond62
This is NOT a recent whim of mine, but an ongoing obsession:
https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?t=36751
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2024 1:15 am
by tperry2x
I just had a bit of a play, making inroads into detecting it.
The problem seems to be that the method for doing this seems to change between MacOS versions.
So far, this is version 2 of the stack to detect the layout.
It seems to detect the correct layout on Windows and Linux, and I've also tested in MacOS 10.9.
I'll try and test in MacOS 12 tomorrow - just might need different methods for different OS / Versions.
The idea is this can eventually be wrapped in a do-it-all function.
- Screenshot at 2024-10-28 01-12-46.png (50.42 KiB) Viewed 625 times
EDIT: Have so far confirmed this seems to work under MacOS 10.9, 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15, 11, and 12.
Edit: works on MacOS 12 as below:
- Screenshot.png (118.68 KiB) Viewed 538 times
I know it's probably a different method for MacOS 10.4, as that gives [error -4].
Under MacOS 10.6, you get a different error code: [error -1728], so my point is this can (
and does) change between MacOS versions quite a lot.
I'll need someone to please try running the following
Applescript under MacOS 13+
I'll also try running this in "Applescript Editor" on various MacOS versions, and see what happens:
Code: Select all
set plistPath to "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist"
try
do shell script "defaults read " & plistPath & " dummy"
end try
tell application "System Events"
repeat with pli in property list items of ¬
property list item "AppleSelectedInputSources" of property list file plistPath
try
return value of property list item "KeyboardLayout Name" of pli
end try
end repeat
end tell
Edit 2: Just seen it's working for you Richmond, so that's great news.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2024 9:35 am
by richmond62
Works PERFECTLY on MacOS 15.1 Sequoia:
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- SShot 2024-10-28 at 11.34.01.png (114.45 KiB) Viewed 571 times
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Marvellous: Thanks.
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2024 11:34 pm
by OpenXTalkPaul
I can confirm the AppleScript works for me on macOS 15.0.1
Result = "U.S."
The only thing I'd be concerned about (beyond one day Apple deciding to deprecate AppleScript) is using "System Events", as I imagine it could trigger some permissions warning if it's coming from an app that's not been granted System Event scripting privileges, or that has accessibility features turned off for whatever reason, or something like that. AppleScript just seems like an unnecessary intermediary in this case since we can get the info using shell() without using AppleScript or System Events at all.
I don't think we need to worry about this working on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger, from 2004/05), do we?
As far as the other part, the mapping of 'rawKey' (X.org key mapping) numbers to certain alternate glyphs?
I think that would require some sort of programming/scripting to happen. Actually I would've thought that macOS would already use the correct glyphs for the current input language. Anyway, that 'OnScreenKeyboard' widget that I built last year has a set of default scripts for capturing just about any sort of keyboard input event ( Function-Keys, NumberPads, Command/Control/Option/Alt combos, etc.). The scripts are meant to be starting point for using every bit of an alpha-numeric computer keyboard as possible as an arbitrary input device, for use as a gaming controller, or to input musical notes, or whatever, basically treating the keyboard like a bank of switch buttons. Those default-scripts consists of large pre-made switch/case control structure, but I have another method for mapping keyboard keys to xTalk messages that's quite fast due to using an Array to store the mapping (it can be seen in action in my 'Virtual MIDI Bass Guitar' stack video on YouTube).
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2024 9:08 am
by richmond62
It looks like I will have to have a MONSTER lookup table for each possible keyboard layout because what interests me is NOT whether an enduser's keyboard layout will deliver the charаcters relevant to that language (which I assume it will), but something like this:
Imagine, if you will, an overlay on an OXT card that looks a bit like this (these are screenshots of the MacOS15 keyboard thingy):
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- SShot 2024-10-29 at 11.05.50.png (115.69 KiB) Viewed 447 times
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US English layout MacOS 15 which changes automatically inwith an OXT stack to this:
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- SShot 2024-10-29 at 11.06.04.png (116.32 KiB) Viewed 447 times
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when the end-user changes to the SlavonicCY layout (or whatever).
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2024 11:36 pm
by OpenXTalkPaul
richmond62 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 29, 2024 9:08 am
It looks like I will have to have a MONSTER lookup table for each possible keyboard layout because what interests me is NOT whether an enduser's keyboard layout will deliver the charаcters relevant to that language (which I assume it will), but something like this:
Imagine, if you will, an overlay on an OXT card that looks a bit like this (these are screenshots of the MacOS15 keyboard thingy):
-
SShot 2024-10-29 at 11.05.50.png
-
US English layout MacOS 15 which changes automatically inwith an OXT stack to this:
-
SShot 2024-10-29 at 11.06.04.png
-
when the end-user changes to the SlavonicCY layout (or whatever).
I was thinking I could make it so that you, me or anyone, could attach your own svg-path icons to the keys for that OnScreenKeyboard widget (it would just be replacing an array element in the array that stores the state of each key), but you would have to provide it glyphs sets as some sort of list. Perhaps it could be a simple tab-sep-values list, which is what the OXT SVG glyphs library uses. I wanted to enhance the thing in a similar way already so that the 'alt' and 'option' keys could be labeled with symbols appropriate for a specific OS (for example).
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2024 10:58 am
by tperry2x
I had another idea, that rather than have loads of different images / graphics for each possible keyboard layout, you could have a script that simply moves the locations of buttons of the onscreen keyboard.
For example, (and I know there are other differences), but the @ and the " would transpose between US and UK english keyboards depending on the detected keyboard layout by just simply moving each button in script.
As in, if UK english: set the topleft of btn "doublequotes" to the topright of btn "2"
If US layout: set the topleft of btn "doublequotes" to the topright of btn ";"
Re: Keyboard layout
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2024 4:33 pm
by richmond62
That, with about 75 keyboard layouts could be fun: but not the type of fun I ever have an urge to indulge in.