[XeTeX] Traditional TeX ligatures once again

[Jonathan Kew]

On 29 Jun 2007, at 2:07 pm, Hans-Werner Hilse wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:56:30 +0200 Peter Dyballa  
> <Peter_Dyballa at web.de>
> wrote:
>
>> Would it make sense to create an Input Manager to be able to type
>> these complicated non-keyboard characters without Character Palette?
>> I presume there are a lot more for non-Latin keyboards.
>
> For Windows, there's the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator:
> http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx
>
> For X11 based terminals there's xkb (and the somewhat restrictive
> xmodmap -- and of course the mentioned Compose Key).
>
> I don't know of anything for the Mac, but it would make me wonder if
> such functionality wouldn't be there and if there wasn't a shiny
> interface you can buy with some money.


There are several tools, as a moment's search with Google would confirm:

   http://www.google.com/search?q=mac+keyboard+layout+editor

No money is required.*

However, such layouts are typically based on "dead-key" mechanisms,  
and there is a practical limit to how many of Unicode's tens of  
thousands of characters can be mapped that way before they become  
unusable. Character palettes or complete-Unicode input methods are  
there to fill in the gaps, when you have an occasional need to enter  
something outside the repertoire for which you have direct keyboard  
layout support.

JK

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