ANNOUNCE: KHIM 1.0 added to tklib

[Kevin Kenny]

I finally managed to get around to bundling up a releasable
version of KHIM (Kevin's Hacky Input Manager). KHIM is a hack
(as the name suggests) to allow for entry of Unicode characters
on a keyboard that lacks them. Rather than interact with any
host's input methods, it designates one ordinary key (the library
as released uses Pause, but often change it to L2 [the F12 key on
a Windows keyboard]) as a "Compose" key. This key must be distinct
from the system's "Compose" key (if there is one).

When KHIM is active, pressing the "Compose" key followed by
a two-character sequence enters a Unicode character corresponding to
the two-character sequence. Pressing the "Compose" key twice
in succession brings up a Unicode character map from which a
character may be selected and inserted into the application.

A text or entry widget may be configured to use KHIM by adding KHIM
to its bindtags in front of the class binding:

package require khim
text .t -width 80 -height 24
bindtags .t {.t KHIM Text . all}
entry .e -width 30
bindtags .e {.e KHIM Entry . all}

There are commands that an application can call to bring up a
control panel for KHIM (allowing for changes to the key bindings),
to bring up user help for KHIM, and to save and restore the KHIM
key bindings.

I wrote KHIM for several reasons:
- On some machines, I'm not allowed, or don't know how, to change
the system's input method to get the characters I want.
- I don't want to have to learn the input methods for all the systems
I use.
- I occasionally have use for some pretty bizarre characters, and
an "Insert Symbol"-style function comes in handy in most
applications that deal with Unicode text.

It's not intended to replace a system input method, but rather to
allow for entry of the occasional character that the system input
method doesn't support.

As always, comments are welcome. Particularly welcome are
translations of the message catalog.

--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin

[suchenwi]

This announcement is also wikified at http://wiki.tcl.tk/16343 for
better persistence :)

[Kevin Kenny]

suchenwi wrote:
> This announcement is also wikified at http://wiki.tcl.tk/16343 for
> better persistence :)

I was *going* to do that today, really! I thought I'd send the
announcement, though, since I'd already committed the code.
By the time I got that done, it was pretty late.