Alt Gr key troubles in FreeBSD

[Erik Norgaard]

nocturnal wrote:

> I tried all the things you mentioned and i discovered that the problem 
> can easily be reproduced in any application. It's simply a matter of me 
> not letting go of the shift key fast enough. I reproduce it by typing 
> any number of characters in caps with the shift key down and then 
> directly switching to pressing the alt gr key and hitting the 8 
> character for example in order to produce the [ character on Swedish 
> keyboards. This is when the output becomes silent and nothing happens.

I don't think this is a bug, but rather a feature:

Some characters become available with the combination of Alt-Gr+shift, 
for example if you don't have a spanish keyboard, you can produce a '¿' 
with Alt-Gr+'?' but to get the '?' you may have to use shift as well. 
Same ting with '¡' and you will find that Alt-Gr+a produces a 'ª' while 
Alt-Gr+shift+a produces a 'º' ... IIRC.

That output becomes "silent" is simply a result of no character being 
located at the Alt-Gr+shift position on that key.

The only characters (I know) I haven't figured out how to type on my 
danish keyboard are ç (French, Portuguese ...) and · (Catalan).

So if someone complains, then just say that it's because they have the 
Babelfish keyboard layout :)

Anyway, I think that this behaviour may date back to old style keyboards 
where the Alt-Gr was a "compose character" and to avoid you having to 
press the fourth key with your nose, you could let go of the others.

Cheers, Erik
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