[Bug 228588] [PATCH] Keymap file to provide Irish language support

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https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=228588

            Bug ID: 228588
           Summary: [PATCH] Keymap file to provide Irish language support
           Product: Base System
           Version: CURRENT
          Hardware: Any
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Only Me
          Priority: ---
         Component: misc
          Assignee: bugs at FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: micheal.maclochlainn at oegaillimh.ie

Created attachment 193812
  --> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=193812&action=edit
Keymap file to provide Irish language support

Hello. I'm new to the FreeBSD community. I've read the rules but please be
understanding if I accidentally break any :)

I needed an Irish language keymap for use in the vt console but, as far as I
can tell, FreeBSD doesn't have one so I made my own and I offer it here as a
patch.

Basically, I took the uk.kbd keymap as a starting point and 'overlayed' Irish
mappings, following those used in the Irish keyboard layout of X.Org. I took
this approach for cross-*nix consistency; also for internal consistency with
X.Org installs on FreeBSD. For the same reason, I moved the Euro symbol from
Alt Gr + e to Alt Gr + 4. I did make _one_ unique tweak: I added a mapping
(Shift + Alt Gr + spacebar) for the non-breaking hyphen, which is
typographically very useful in Irish.

I'd wanted to fully-emulate the Irish X.Org keyboard layout but I couldn't get
a lot (most?) of its dead keys to work so I settled for a 'basic' layout that
supports a working subset of X.Org's Irish modifier key mappings and also
accent/deadkey mappings for the grave accent. This subset includes all the
linguistic essentials for Irish and, because of the grave accent key mappings,
also provides support for Scottish Gaelic, which is closely-related to Irish.

I can see no reason why this keymap shouldn't be perfectly usable to any Irish
(or even UK) user working in English. All the commonly-used characters have
been left exactly where you'd expect to find them on an Irish- or UK English
keyboard.

I've tested this keymap over the past month and a half and it seems to work
fine - but with two caveats:

1. I have non-breaking space (again, typographically very useful) mapped to Alt
Gr + spacebar but I can't get it to work at all: you press the key combination
but nothing happens. This is the only mapping that doesn't result in the
correct character being entered.

2. Several of the Irish characters lack glyph support in the 'native' console
fonts available to vt, and you only get an unknown-glyph square - or an ampty
space, depending on the font - when you enter them. I tested to make sure it
_was_ just a matter of glyph support by taking a Unifont .bdf file, feeding it
to vtfontcvt to make a vt-compatible .fnt file and then running vidcontrol -f
to load it. All characters _except_ non-breaking space then rendered perfectly.

(I've also created an Irish locale (ga_IE.UTF-8) for vt but that's really a
different matter so I've offered it as a separate patch (228587).)

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