Algebraic Programming Language APL

[Gene222]

(10-14-2018 08:35 AM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote:  

(10-13-2018 09:49 PM)Gene222 Wrote:  That is close, but it not the same as on the HP Prime Connectivity Kit.

But your question was: How did you determine Alt+26 was for the '→' character?

To grsbanks' quote: "Windows machines at least (I don't know about Mac or Linux) you can get that by holding down the Alt key, typing 26 and releasing the Alt key."

Yes. That was my question.

I tried a bunch of Alt+ key codes on the HP Prime connectivity kit. It seems that there are only 256 Alt+ key codes. After 256, the key code characters simply repeat themselves. The Alt+ key codes for the right arrow and degree symbols are:

→ = Alt+ 26, 282, 538, ...
° = Alt+ 248, 504, 760, ...

There does not appear to be any Alt+ key codes for characters, such as θ, minutes, or seconds symbols. I guess any letters and symbols that are not included in the original 256 characters have to be copied and pasted into the Prime Connectivity Kit program.

Attached is a program that lists the Alt+ key codes that I typed into the Connectivity Kit.

[brickviking]

Did you by chance try prefacing the codes with 0? i.e. Alt+0282 ? Does that give you the same result as Alt+26 ?

I thought I'd mention this, because sometimes zero-padding is the only way to get Windows to recognise you might really want a character >255 for Unicode "compliance". Yes, I know I've butchered the term, but I can't think of a closer one.

(Post 306)

[Gene222]

(10-15-2018 01:44 AM)brickviking Wrote:  Did you by chance try prefacing the codes with 0? i.e. Alt+0282 ? Does that give you the same result as Alt+26 ?

I have an old 17" HP laptop running Windows 8.1. When typing on the Prime connectivity kit, the Alt+ key codes (or whatever it's called) will not accept leading zeros, at least not on my laptop. So, Alt-down 0 0 2 6 Alt-up will not work, but Alt-down 2 6 Alt-up does work. Also, the numbers have to be entered from the numeric key pad and not from the numbers above the qwerty letters.

I have an old Genovation programmable 24 key keypad. If I knew what the Alt+ key stokes are for a special character, I can assign those keystrokes to one of the keys. That is why I wanted to know what the Alt+ key codes were for the the Prime connectivity kit.

[grsbanks]

(10-15-2018 03:30 AM)Gene222 Wrote:  I have an old Genovation programmable 24 key keypad. If I knew what the Alt+ key stokes are for a special character, I can assign those keystrokes to one of the keys. That is why I wanted to know what the Alt+ key codes were for the the Prime connectivity kit.

The keycode has nothing to do with the CK, it's related to the system. You'll get the same result typing into any text editor or browser except MS-Edge, which mangles Alt keycodes for some reason based on Microsoft's infinite wisdom most likely. It's probably using a font that doesn't include the glyph and it's not easy to change on that browser.

This only works properly for codes <= 256 and the resulting character is based on the Windows-1252 character set. For codes >= 32 you need to prefix a zero.

[Eric Rechlin]

I made several such keyboards myself for Windows to make use of the AltGr key for typing other characters. I posted this one specifically for Prime keys in an older thread here, but I got approximately zero interest in it:

https://www.hpcalc.org/details/7853

I have another that allows Greek, Cyrillic, and all sorts of other characters to be typed, too, in addition to the Prime characters, but I don't think I ever released it, because there was so little interest in the one I did release.

[grsbanks]

(10-17-2018 07:59 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  https://www.hpcalc.org/details/7853

I can see many uses for this. My native language is English but I often slip into other languages that require an alternative layout unless you can remember a sh*tload of Alt-xxx key combos.

Would you consider sharing the source code for this so I can tailor it to my own specific needs or, better still, make it run-time configurable?

[burkhard]

(10-18-2018 07:40 AM)grsbanks Wrote:  

(10-17-2018 07:59 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  https://www.hpcalc.org/details/7853

I can see many uses for this. My native language is English but I often slip into other languages that require an alternative layout unless you can remember a sh*tload of Alt-xxx key combos.

Would you consider sharing the source code for this so I can tailor it to my own specific needs or, better still, make it run-time configurable?

If your native language is English, but you often use other languages (especially European), mine is particularly well set up for that giving ä,ö,ü,ß, à, á, ñ, ç and bunch more easily without need for any code-remembering. I occasionally write in German and find it invaluable for that.

Eric and I did essentially the same thing and it is very easy... no need to modify / compile source code. We downloaded a free utility from Microsoft called the "Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4" (MSKLC) and used that to assign Unicode characters to specific keys on the keyboard. You can either start from scratch or start from an existing one (US English, UK English, Swiss German, Tagalog, whatever) and modify that however suits your fancy.

The Microsoft utility spits out a bunch of files including an *.exe that when run installs the layout you created into the list available from Control Panel (under Region and Language, or something similar depending on your Windows version). Once it's on the list, you merely pick this keyboard layout instead of your prior one and it's "there" for everything running in Windows all the time. There's no special need to fire it up when desired... just install and it stays active until you pick another or go back to what you started from.

Both Eric and I took advantage that Windows actually treats the Right Alt key differently from the left and one can use that to invoke extra characters. So if I hit "j" with the "Right Alt" key held down I get →. And "a" with the RightAlt key held gives me ä. And "L" with the RightALt yields Λ. And many many more. Look up above at my prior post #14 to see what the map of my layout looks like. Eric and I had a different philosophy and did it differently, but the tools we used were exactly the same.

If you want to change an existing layout (like ours or one of the built-in ones), you don't need source code for anything. You just need the Microsoft utility and either a keyboard layout file (*.klc) somebody (like Eric or me) gave you OR you can modify already-installed layouts on your machine.

•The Microsoft utility MSKLC is here. You only need it if you want to make changes. If you merely want to try (and not edit) what Eric or I did, you don't need MSKLC, but only our respective files which are ready to install. But you'll probably want to fiddle on your own as well... :-)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download...x?id=22339
MSKLC was written years ago for Vista, but it works fine for later Windows, at least through 8.x and probably 10 as well.

I found online a nice writeup on using the MSKLC here:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/linguist..._MSKLC.pdf
I haven't read through it thoroughly (because I already know how to use it), but it looks helpful.

•If you would like to try my layout, you can download a zip from my Dropbox. In that is a *.docx file that tells how to install / use it. If it looks good, there's also a setup.exe that installs the layout into Windows. If you don't like it, it's simple to disable or completely uninstall.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6der9htt30wrfv...3.zip?dl=0

Let me know (here or PM) if you have any questions.

[grsbanks]

Ah -- great. I didn't realize there was a ready-made tool to help with this (I've not read every post in the thread).

I'm actually a software developer by trade and have already written a keyboard hook for some stuff we do at work (intercepting stuff coming from a barcode scanner configured as a keyboard wedge) so writing/compiling code is not something that scares me

[Thomas Okken]

If your foreign-language needs aren't too demanding, you may also be able to get by with vanilla Windows. My setup is to install the standard ENG/US and ENG/INTL keymaps ("English (United States) / US keyboard" and "English (United States) / United States-International keyboard", respectively); I use ENG/US most of the time, and switch to ENG/INTL (using the Win+Space shortcut to switch back and forth) to write German or whatever else needs accents. The INTL layout uses dead keys for accents, so there's no need to memorize Alt-XXXX codes.

[brickviking]

I went another route with my setup and used WinCompose (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose). What that does is provides your Right-Alt (or whatever other key you nominate) as a Compose key. I don't have to worry about holding down the Alt-key and then typing on the numeric keypad (assuming I remember the right character out of 3294 of them). Instead, I hit Compose then ' then e for é, Compose ~ n gives me ñ, Compose ^ a results in â, and so on. If you click on the system tray applet, you can see a list of the 1764 characters it supports. Yes, it's not everything, but it's a decent subset. From what I can tell, it's a cut down AutoHotKey script wrapped in an executable; however it certainly seems to work.

I haven't ever tried using this setup with the Connectivity Kit, mainly because I don't have a real Prime, only an out-of-date Prime emulator.

(Post 308)

[ijabbott]

(10-19-2018 09:15 AM)brickviking Wrote:  I went another route with my setup and used WinCompose (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose). What that does is provides your Right-Alt (or whatever other key you nominate) as a Compose key. I don't have to worry about holding down the Alt-key and then typing on the numeric keypad (assuming I remember the right character out of 3294 of them). Instead, I hit Compose then ' then e for é, Compose ~ n gives me ñ, Compose ^ a results in â, and so on. If you click on the system tray applet, you can see a list of the 1764 characters it supports. Yes, it's not everything, but it's a decent subset. From what I can tell, it's a cut down AutoHotKey script wrapped in an executable; however it certainly seems to work.

The nice part is that you can define your own compose key sequences.

Some of the built-in compose sequences are not actually usable because they are composed from characters that are already exotic enough to be untypeable, and there is no support for recursive compose sequences as far as I can tell (not that that limitation is unique to WinCompose).

Still, you can type cool things such as (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ彡┻━┻ (table flip like a boss) easily.