Set default keyboard layout (for other language) for a field

[Igor de Oliveira Couto]

Jonathan, I couldn't resist, and ended up trying this out myself:

On 19/02/2013, at 3:42 PM, Igor de Oliveira Couto <igor at semperuna.com> wrote:

> For an more polished user experience, you can try developing a script that is more forgiving when the user mixes upper- and lower-case 'x's, like "Cx" and "cX". You can also try to develop a script that would do the replacing on 'textChanged' rather than on 'closeField', but you will then have to use 'the selectedChunk' and some basic maths in order not to loose the user's insertion point place in the text, as you replace the characters.

I managed to get a 'quick-and-dirty' version working, already. It will still need to be improved quite a bit, and cover cases I haven't thought of, but it seems to be a good starting point. Paste this in the script of a field:

on textChanged
   local tSel
   put the selectedChunk into tSel
   set the htmlText of me to xSystemToUnicode(the htmlText of me)
   select after tSel
end textChanged

function xSystemToUnicode pHTMLTxt
   replace "cx" with "ĉ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "cX" with "ĉ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Cx" with "Ĉ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "CX" with "Ĉ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "gx" with "ĝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "gX" with "ĝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Gx" with "Ĝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "GX" with "Ĝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "hx" with "ĥ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "hX" with "ĥ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Hx" with "Ĥ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "HX" with "Ĥ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "jx" with "ĵ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "jX" with "ĵ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Jx" with "Ĵ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "JX" with "Ĵ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "sx" with "ŝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "sX" with "ŝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Sx" with "Ŝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "SX" with "Ŝ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "uxx" with "ŭ" in pHTMLTxt -- we don't want to have problems
   replace "uxX" with "ŭ" in pHTMLTxt -- with English words like 'auxiliary'...
   replace "uXX" with "ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "uXx" with "ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "Uxx" with "Ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "UXx" with "Ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "UxX" with "Ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   replace "UXX" with "Ŭ" in pHTMLTxt
   return pHTMLTxt
end xSystemToUnicode

Then, try typing a sentence in Esperanto in the field, using the x-method, such as:

"Mi nomigxas Jocxjo!"

The letters should automagically convert from the x-system to the proper, accented characters, as you type. The function above also has built-in 'forgiveness' for mismatching the case of the 'x' - if you type an uppercase 'C' and a lowercase 'x', it will convert it to an uppercase 'Ĉ'.

I hope this helps!

--
Igor Couto
Sydney, Australia