Up, Down and Sideways

[Martin Baxter]

On 13/12/13 10:42, Richmond wrote:
> On 13/12/13 12:18, Martin Baxter wrote:
>> On 13/12/13 05:32, Richmond wrote:
>>> On 13/12/13 01:57, Warren Samples wrote:
>>>> On 12/12/2013 02:31 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>>>>> And that's why we need an authoritative source.  I've never looked
>>>>> into
>>>>> it deeply enough to find which component is handling the Alt keys. 
>>>>> But
>>>>> if it's not Gnome, it may be something lower (though almost certainly
>>>>> not the kernel), or something higher (possible Ubuntu's keybindings
>>>>> interface, which I had thought were inherited from Gnome, but may be
>>>>> part of what they get from Debian).
>>>>
>>>> These seem to be common shortcuts under Linux. I use them under KDE. I
>>>> like alt+drag to resize in particular, and note that the only way I
>>>> can grab and move the LiveCode tools palette is using alt. It may not
>>>> be on by default in all distros. I can turn it on and off as well as
>>>> change the modifier key. I have seen references in forum posts which
>>>> indicated that at least some KDE users who had never used these
>>>> shortcuts had to turn them on.
>>>>
>>>> When I change the modifier key for window resizing and moving to
>>>> "Meta" (option), Richmond's script runs as expected. LiveCode works as
>>>> stated, so long as the OS isn't hijacking the signal for its own
>>>> purposes further up the hierarchy.
>>>>
>>>> Conflicts in creating shortcuts are always a possibility and require a
>>>> little caution, and it's good to make people aware of the high
>>>> probability that "alt+mouseX" will be unavailable to LiveCode under
>>>> Linux, but I think it's not quite right to suggest it's broken.
>>>>
>>>> Warren
>>>>
>>> That's a good point, but the problem I have is that I am putting a
>>> program together for use by Professors of Old Church Slavonic who have
>>> computers running Mac, Win and Linux and know nothing at all about how
>>> to muck about the mod. keys on their machines.
>>>
>>> Therefore my standalone should "just work" when it ends up on some
>>> Prof's machine, regardless of
>>> what system s/he is running.  AND, the mod. keys used should be the same
>>> ones regardless of OS as well.
>>>
>>> Richmond.
>>>
>> On my (elderly) Ubuntu, variant/high bit characters are typed using
>> combinations of:
>>
>> Alt Gr
>> shift
>>
>> Rather than alt + shift. And that is the stock configuration. You might
>> perhaps be able to use the keysdown to detect these, but the returned
>> keycodes may vary across systems I guess.
>>
>> Easier for left-handers anyway.
>>
>> Might be nice for linux users if livecode could detect the state of Alt
>> Gr key.
>>
>> On my Ubuntu, the keysdown gives me:
>>
>> R Shift    65506
>> L Shift 65505
>> Alt    [nothing]
>> Alt Gr    65027
>> L Shift + Alt    65505,65511
>> R Shift + Alt Gr    65506,65312
>>
>> I don't know if this helps you at all, but it seemed worth mentioning.
>>
>> I would expect that alt + shift should work for windows and mac though,
>> so this issue is presumably Linux specific.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
> 
> That seems a helpful idea.
> 
> However, I'm not sure what you mean by 'Alt Gr'.
> 
> Richmond.
> 

The "other Alt key". It's found to the right of the space bar usually I
believe. That's where it is on my MS keyboards anyway. Possibly some
keyboards don't support it.

I suspect it may be what livecode calls the extend key?

Anyway.

Martin