On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Tim Rowledge wrote:

> On Wed 01 Dec, Raab, Andreas wrote:
> > Daniel,
> > 
> > > On Windows NT, some Command Key actions don't seem to work 
> > > correctly. 
> > 
> > What you're encountering is a porting problem. The keybindings were
> > originally designed on a Mac and there is just no equivalent of a 'command'
> > key on Windows machines.
> ...same sort of problem on Acorn and I seem to remember reading about similar
> with *nix. 

But, although there is no modifier key labeled "Command", there certainly
is some "Alt" or "Meta" key everywhere?

> Maybe we need a more abstract definition so that it can work more
> portably?

Absolutely. For example, #shiftPressed must not be used in combination
with regular keys, since the keyboard mappings vary widely (for example,
$' is Shift-# on a German keyboard so ALT-' does enclosing with double
quotes $"). It should be okay to use with mouse clicks and special keys
like cursor movement or function keys.

I think the VM should provide the character code independendly from the
ctrl/cmd state (ctrl+letter might be an exception) - at least as long as
we stay roughly in the current keyboard framework. Otherwise we have to
implement a platform and language dependend keyboard mapping on the Squeak
side. 

In the future there should be regular key-down/key-up events so we're able
to check for simultaneous keypresses, too (essential for gaming). But even
then, we need platform independend keyboard event identifiers. AFAIK the
Squeak multi-lingual efforts did not deal with input yet.

  -Bert-