Subj : How to enter Unicode characters in Windows
To   : Michiel van der Vlist
From : Sergey Dorofeev
Date : Mon Apr 27 2015 22:49:20

Hello Michiel,

orig.message to echo UTF-8 on 25 Apr 15  11:46:21
 SD>> Sometimes number of keys in not enough.
 MV> On some European keyboards the right Alt key is labelled "Alt Gr". With
 MV> the proper keyboard driver it is used to give an alternate meaning to some
 MV> keys. For example with my Dutchkeyboard driver, the combination of the
 MV> right Alt key with the 5 on the top row is a Euro sign.  Right Alt + m = æ
 MV> Right Alt + s = á
 MV> Of course, ome can still run into some symbol that is not covered that
 MV> way. Then there is no other way than to just enterthe code manually...

Keyboard layout can be modified in driver at last. But there is another problem - location for mu, pi or ss can be easily guessed, but if there is no such clear consonance we need to make some memo to remember where it is - separate paper or sticker for keyboard key.

 SD>> I know in book editing job they input special symbols that are not
 SD>> included in any layout. So they use printed paper with Alt+ codes. I
 SD>> do not think it is convenient.
 MV> Indeed, not convenient. Especially if seldom used. The note with the
 MV> special codes always gets lost...

I offer to consider on-screen keyboard as software replacement for such note.
And "Character map" as ultimate replacement of keyboard in aspect of its unusability :)

 SD>> And sometimes I do not understand why all these shit are included in
 SD>> UNICODE table - digits of different kinds, digits in circles, digit in
 SD>> sqaure, all the fucking emojies... I thought that UNICODE is way to
 SD>> represent all alphabets, but currently it stands to be font abuser.
 MV> The idea was to cover all characters in use. Past and present. It does
 MV> indeed seem an overkill. OTOH, it does not bother me. I just use what I
 MV> need.

I'd prefered that all these strange symbols was drawed as embedded SVG for example. Becouse if I do not have sufficiently fresh and complete font I see only square with four hexadecimal digits.
Moreover all the text can be represented as SVG but it will be horror for full-text search indexers :)

Sergey

.... vim
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