Bug 5981

Created attachment 4695 [details] [review]
Patch to xc/programs/xkbcomp/symbols/pc/pl

Well, since this patch is not about Euro only and it affects default pl layout -
are you sure people using default Polish layout would be happy with your
changes? Actually, does it match the layout engraved on the keyboards sold in
Poland?

(In reply to comment #2)
> Well, since this patch is not about Euro only and it affects default pl layout
> - are you sure people using default Polish layout would be happy with your
> changes? 

Actually, it does not break anything and adds new functionality: some new
characters. There is REPLACES column in patch description and the REASON as
well, you could carefully review them. All of the symbols replaced by this patch
could be entered by another key stroke. 

I tried to create some new layout that will be comfortable for polish people.
Please let me advertise this bug in the polish community - maybe we will have
some interesting discussion here. 

> Actually, does it match the layout engraved on the keyboards sold in
> Poland?

Nearly all (~95% I guess) of the keyboards being sold in Poland have US-English
layout in fact. Sometimes the Euro sign is engraved as AltGr-5 (but I am sure
people using X.org are used to have 1/2 sign there). The other keystroke
commonly used in the world for Euro sign - AltGr-E - is used in Poland for
eogonek (specific polish letter). There are also some keyboards with the "old"
QWERTZ layout (similar to typing machines' ones), but they are not very popular. 

I think the most needed characters not present in the default polish keyboard
are: EuroSign, cent, section, ssharp, doublelowquotemark, leftdoublequotemark.
The other changes are just for extending the polish layout - I think there is no
need to duplicate some characters and the "free" keystrokes should be used for
some other characters. 

Polish basic keyboard (also referred as "polish programmers") is very like US
layout, it only adds AltGr+{a,c,e,l,n,o,s,z,x,A,C,E,L,N,O,S,Z,X}.

I noticed recently that AltGr+{v,b} gives the english quotes (“”) and I started
using them in my english blog without needing to change the keyboard layout.

So don't replace english quotes with polish quotes, just add the polish left
(bottom) quote and let the english quote stay.

(In reply to comment #4)

> So don't replace english quotes with polish quotes, just add the polish left
> (bottom) quote and let the english quote stay.

All right, it is possible to leave the original english qoutes and add polish
one into shifted position. The patch needs only replacing doublelowquotemark and
 leftdoublequotemark each other.

Marek, you suggest Euro sign with this shortcut: Alt Gr + Shift + 5.
I've just checked how does it look like on Windows (however I am Ubuntu user) -
it accessible after hiting Alt Gr + U.
Why do you suggest any new shortcut? Maybe Windows is not a "standard", but have
you made any research how this sign is accessible in other countries?

(In reply to comment #6)
> Marek, you suggest Euro sign with this shortcut: Alt Gr + Shift + 5.

No, I suggested AltGr-Shift-4, just next to dollar sign. 

> I've just checked how does it look like on Windows (however I am Ubuntu user)
> - it accessible after hiting Alt Gr + U.

It is surprising for me: I didn't know about it. 

> Why do you suggest any new shortcut? 

Because: 
- AltGr-Shift-4 was "free" (in fact: duplicated dollar)
- It is near to dollar (and both are currency symbols)

> Maybe Windows is not a "standard", but have
> you made any research how this sign is accessible in other countries?

Yes, in most layouts the Euro Sign is accessible by pressing AltGr-E or AltGr-5.
In the Irish one it is at AltGr-Shift-4 (just the same I have proposed).

I haven't known about AltGr-U till now. I just noticed that Hungarian have
EuroSign at AltGr-U - I suspect they have taken it from MS...

The patch I have provided is just useful for me. I agree that it is not the best
one, but we should discuss what to do because lack of EuroSign is really
annoying (at least for me:) )

OK, one more explanation. I was trying to do changes which does not go very deep
and are revolutionary. I have noticed that most of the characters (with
diaeresis,  double diaeresis, accute and so on) are accessible by the death
keys. I've also noticed that there are many symbols which are duplicated (for
example: `at' sign at AltGr-Q or Lstroke at AltGr-W, braces and brackets at
AltGr-7 to 0). I decided to place the new charactes at keystrokes that are not
currently used by (nearly) anyone because they are duplicated. The best place
for Euro seemed to be near to dollar sign. 
The only one invasive change was replacing double left quote mark by polish one
(down left double quote mark) and moving the original one upcase (to
AltGr-Shift-V) because it looks nice (upper one as shifted). But people are used
to use AltGr-v/AltGr-b pair, so mabye it should be rotated again in my patch
(I'll provide the next version after some more discussion, to possibly include
more changes).
I am not really sure that those characters are needed: oe, oslash, Greek_pi, ae,
notequal, copyright, "similar to", guillemotleft, guillemotright. Maybe you have
better propositions, but I have taken them into consideration because they are
present in the basic 'latin' layout, but they've been overloaded by polish
letters. And the characters: oe, ae, oslash are probably the only one used in UE
countries, which are not accessible by using "death" keys combinations. 

Anyway, I am very glad that THERE IS a discussion about it and there is a real
chance to change something (am I right, Sergey?)

How about placing polish quote marks at AltGr+' and AltGr+Shift+'? It would be
quite intuitive IMHO. Most people are used just to hit Shift+' key if they want
to put quote mark somewhere, so it will be the obvious choice to make it polish
one by just adding AltGr, same as with other polish characters. 
BTW IMO these are even more important than euro sign - I definitely too often
see "this kind" of citation in polish texts. :(
Well, just my 0.2 cents. ;]

(In reply to comment #9)
> How about placing polish quote marks at AltGr+' and AltGr+Shift+'? It would be
> quite intuitive IMHO. 

Yes, it would be intuitive, but we will miss the death keys (for circumflex and
caron). I think there is no reason to move the death keys to other location
because of the "compatibility". 

As I said, the main goal is to make new layout, but as much compatible with the
previous one as possible.

> Well, just my 0.2 cents. ;]

Thank you :)

I think that Alt+Shift+4 for Euro sign is too complicated. I would rather put 
it as either Alt+5 (my keyboard has an Euro sign drawn on the 5 key) or Alt+U 
like in Windows (since Alt+E is not available because of eogonek).

All right then. 

I noticed that the keyboards with Euro engraved near to 5 are getting more and
more popular in Poland. But it breaks the onehalf character and many people
would be disappointed with such change.

I think the better resolution is to create a few variant of the polish keyboard
and make the default the one which is compatible with the current keyboard map.

Now there are 5 variants defined in pc/pl layout: basic, qwertz, dvorak,
dvorak_quotes, dvorak_altquotes.

There is also some discussion about this bug (in Polish) on the LinuxNews.pl
site. To sum up, I have the proposition, as follows:
- leave qwertz and dvorak* layout as is,
- modify basic layout with the patch I've provided (with swapped down left quote
and standard left quote) to keep the basic layout the most compatible with
current one (please note that the rest of changes does not break anything: it
just removes the duplicated symbols with new ones - but if it is not acceptable,
I'll cut them down),
- add two more layouts: 
 * wincompatible (with EuroSign at AltGr-U, and possibly more changes which are
included in layout provided by fonty.pl for MS Windows) 
 * and the basic_euro (with EuroSign at AltGr-5 and onehalf moved to AltGr-7, as
in the US layout). 

I will provide a patch soon (maybe tomorrow).

Sergey, is it acceptable to have seven polish keyboard layouts? I hope it is not
a problem. It will let people to choose the best solution for them: 
- use basic layout with Euro and quotes, but without breaking the existing
keystrokes (new basic),
- keep keyboard compatible with the MS layout (wincompatible),
- use the deprecated qwertz layout (qwertz),
- use the layout which match the engraved layout on the many keyboards (us standard)
- use one of the current dvorak layouts (does anybody use them?)

> Sergey, is it acceptable to have seven polish keyboard layouts? I hope it is not
> a problem. It will let people to choose the best solution for them: 
Yes you can have 7 _variants_.
> - use basic layout with Euro and quotes, but without breaking the existing
> keystrokes (new basic),
> - keep keyboard compatible with the MS layout (wincompatible),
Traditionally we call them winkeys in our database.
> - use the deprecated qwertz layout (qwertz),
> - use the layout which match the engraved layout on the many keyboards (us
standard)
> - use one of the current dvorak layouts (does anybody use them?)
ok, so:
pl(basic)
pl(winkeys)
pl(qwertz)
pl(us)
pl(dvorak)

It sounds ok for me as long as everything is consistent and maintained by some
Polish;)

> Yes you can have 7 _variants_.

Nice :-)

> ok, so:
> pl(basic)
> pl(winkeys)
> pl(qwertz)
> pl(us)
Hm, the name for the last one is a little ambigous because all of the variants
are in fact based on the us (or latin) layout. But I have no better proposition
for now.

> pl(dvorak)
and:
pl(dvorak_quotes)
pl(dvorak_altquotes)

I do not want to be responsible for breaking someone's habits ;-)

> It sounds ok for me as long as everything is consistent and maintained by some
> Polish;)

It is not a big problem for me to maintain it. 

I am preparing new patch now. 

> > pl(dvorak)
> and:
> pl(dvorak_quotes)
> pl(dvorak_altquotes)
Ghm... 3 dvoraks looks like a bit of overkill. Are you sure you need them all?

> It is not a big problem for me to maintain it. 
Good! I will remember this:)

> I am preparing new patch now. 
Great! Actually you can just submit a patch for base.xml.in - and entire new
version of symbols/pl (not as a patch)

Other thing to worry about: default layout needs to be in accordance with any
official standard by Polish government (eg. in Serbia and Montenegro, it is
prescribed by an ISO member organisation), if we want X.org and free software to
be used in institutions (tenders and public offers commonly have these
requirements).

So, while we can sometimes easily create a "better" layout, lets not forget that
for widespread use, we need it to follow official guidelines.

Also, I've put „ and “ (quotes for Serbian, probably just like those for Polish,
since we are all based on German typography :) on AltGr+S, AltGr+D.

Note that putting EuroSign on a key is also possible independently of any layout
in use (check "Layout Options" in [Gnome] Keyboard Preferences), and I am pretty
certain that EuroSign is going to be more important to people than 1/2 sign. :)

(In reply to comment #16)
> Other thing to worry about: default layout needs to be in accordance with any
> official standard by Polish government (eg. in Serbia and Montenegro, it is
> prescribed by an ISO member organisation)

Unfortunately, the only official standard in Poland is the one describing the
typewriter keyboard. There are NO keyboards for computers widely available  with
this deprecated standard. Maybe it sounds strange, but it is a fact. Moreover,
the MS Windows does not contain the "polish standard layout" - it contains a
modification of German qwertz layout with "polish" diacritical characters
instead of German ones. So, the Polish layout is a pretty big mess :-)

> if we want X.org and free software to be used in institutions (tenders and 
> public offers commonly have these requirements).

Actually, nobody will even consider using "polish standard qwertz" keyboard in
any institution, but of course it will be better to include such layout - as a
one of the variants.

> So, while we can sometimes easily create a "better" layout, lets not forget 
> that for widespread use, we need it to follow official guidelines.

The current basic layout is compatible with a default Polish one in MS Windows
prior to XP (but of course it contains a lot of more characters). The MS Windows
is the most popular in Polish institutions. 

> I am pretty certain that EuroSign is going to be more important to people than
> 1/2 sign. :)

I agree :) OK, I am pretty sure we need some more discussion. Maybe it will be
better to follow the Windows standard and add also the EuroSign at AltGr-U. 

In the "polish programmers" keyboard there are many duplicated signs, for
example "@" (Shift+2 and right Alt+q), "{" (Shif+[ and Alt+7) and so on. In my
opinion, it well be better, to replace them with Euro, Eucent and others sings
(like paragraph).

I'm Polish :-) And I agree that eurosign is more important than onehalf.
Besides that, I have eurosign engraved on AltGr+5 on all my keyboards :-)

robzon

And what is the status of Polish programmers layout with eurosing and without
irritating AltGr + w = ł ?

Created attachment 5921 [details]
New proposition of polish variants

I'm sorry for such big delay. Here is my new proposition of the Polish keyboard
layout. Finally, there are 9 variants - 4 new. Let me describe them. 
All of the variants include the non-breaking space at AltGr-Space. It may be
useful in my opinion. And the variants are:
 * basic - this is mainly the version from my first patch: the most compatible
with the previous version, does not break anything, but adds some new
characters. The EuroSign is at AltGr-Shift-4.
 * us - roughly the same as basic, but 1/2 moved to AltGr-7 and EuroSign at
AltGr-5 (most keyboards being sold in Poland have Euro engraved there)
 * winkeys - all the dead keys removed out (Windows users are not aware of
them), compatible with Windows XP AltGr-U EuroSign, but also compatible with
the "Akcent" polish layout (available at fonty.pl, recommended by
windows.online.pl) 
 * pn87 - added for "purist", who remember the old, typewriter layout. This is
REAL Polish standard, but in fact no one uses it. However, we may want to
provide it The EuroSign is at AltGr-U.
 * legacy - this is the previous variant for the people who does not want to
change anything
 * dvorak, qwertz and deliverables: left for compatibility.

Please provide some comments, if you have any. Sergey, please look at this and
give me some feedback also.

> All of the variants include the non-breaking space at AltGr-Space. It may be
> useful in my opinion.
Well "useful" is one thing and "people already use it" is another. What's the
situation here?

>  * basic - this is mainly the version from my first patch: the most compatible
> with the previous version, does not break anything, but adds some new
> characters. The EuroSign is at AltGr-Shift-4.
>  * us - roughly the same as basic, but 1/2 moved to AltGr-7 and EuroSign at
> AltGr-5 (most keyboards being sold in Poland have Euro engraved there)
Well, there are various XkbOptions for Euro character placement. If 1/2
difference is not essential - may be, one 'basic' variant could be enough? The
point here is that I would be inclined to reduce the number of variants if the
difference can be covered by XkbOptions or not substantial. I hope you see what
I mean - reducing the number of the maintenance items...

>  * winkeys - all the dead keys removed out (Windows users are not aware of
> them), compatible with Windows XP AltGr-U EuroSign, but also compatible with
> the "Akcent" polish layout (available at fonty.pl, recommended by
> windows.online.pl)
Is is EXACT layout used in MSWin?

>  * pn87 - added for "purist", who remember the old, typewriter layout. This is
> REAL Polish standard, but in fact no one uses it. However, we may want to
> provide it The EuroSign is at AltGr-U.
Could it be named as "typewriter" - just for conformance with existing variants
in other layouts?
>  * legacy - this is the previous variant for the people who does not want to
> change anything
We can cover this using the compatibility rule mapping "legacy" to "typewriter",
cannot we?

>  * dvorak, qwertz and deliverables: left for compatibility.
Sorry, I could not find "deliverables"?

(In reply to comment #22)
> > All of the variants include the non-breaking space at AltGr-Space. It may be
> > useful in my opinion.
> Well "useful" is one thing and "people already use it" is another. What's the
> situation here?

Actually, I am using it. But I can not promise that everybody wants to use it.
It is just a proposition, copied from the IE layout in fact. It can be discussed
(but I agree it is a little risky to include this sign in the default layout: it
could be pressed very easy by mistake, the non-breaking space looks the same in
the terminal as the ordinary space, but the charcode is different... maybe it
should be only at AltGr-Shift-Space? Or maybe it is not necessary, because the
Office applcations provide that character by themselves?). 

> Well, there are various XkbOptions for Euro character placement. If 1/2
> difference is not essential - may be, one 'basic' variant could be enough? The
> point here is that I would be inclined to reduce the number of variants if the
> difference can be covered by XkbOptions or not substantial. I hope you see 
> what I mean - reducing the number of the maintenance items...

Yes, I understand that it is in fact a big overhead. But there are some people
who just does not want to change ANYTHING. I understand that the EuroSign could
be enabled by XkbOptions (by adding the proper eurosign(...) clause), but the
rest of characters will not be changed by this. 

> >  * winkeys - all the dead keys removed out (Windows users are not aware of
> > them), compatible with Windows XP AltGr-U EuroSign, but also compatible with
> > the "Akcent" polish layout (available at fonty.pl, recommended by
> > windows.online.pl)
> Is is EXACT layout used in MSWin?

This is exact layout commonly used in Windows, but not the official one. If it
is a problem, I could leave only official Windows key-bindings. 

> >  * pn87 - added for "purist", who remember the old, typewriter layout. 
> Could it be named as "typewriter" - just for conformance with existing 
> variants in other layouts?

Of course. 

> >  * legacy - this is the previous variant for the people who does not want to
> > change anything
> We can cover this using the compatibility rule mapping "legacy" to  "typewriter",
> cannot we?

No, we can not, because the "legacy" one is the previous "default" version, but
it does not have anything in common with the "typewriter" (pn87) standard.
Again, there is one polish standard (adopted from the typewriters, QWERTZ
layout), but in fact no one uses it (but it was stated that there could be some
strange requirement in the government order or something like this, to comply
all of the standards...). The most commonly used layout in Poland is the QWERTY
with AltGr-keys to provide the special polish letters. The things are event more
complicated: Microsoft has created the next QWERTZ layout, but this is
incompatible with the official standard. 

To sum up, in Poland we have:
- polish "programmers" standard (97% or more users) - current default variant in
xkb and the windows ones are compatible with it,
- official polish standard pn87 (<1% users),
- MS polish layout - the "qwertz" variant in xkb (<1% users)
- dvorak layout (<1% users)

The current default variant is well adopted by the community, but has no
EuroSign. My first proposition was to add it (and some more characters) to the
key bindings which are not used or duplicated. But it is not compatible with the
Windows layout (AltGr-U) and the keyboards being sold in the polish shops
(AltGr-5). 

> >  * dvorak, qwertz and deliverables: left for compatibility.
> Sorry, I could not find "deliverables"?

The variants which are a small modification of the qwertz variant: I don't know
why they are necessary and who uses them, but I don't want to break anything. 

Next proposition (I am sorry about so much discussion about it, but I REALLY do
not want to change anyone's habits and break anyone's systems):
- new default: EuroSign at AltGr-5 (just like the engraved euro on keyboards),
compatible with the current default (but onehalf moved to AltGr-7),
- windows keyboard completly cleaned up (only the characters from the official
windows keyboard),
- current default as a legacy variant (for those who does not need Euro and does
not want to change ANYTHING),
- all of the current variants (for those who uses them),
- the new, real "typewriter" (for the government officials, who wants to comply
to all of the standards). 

Please note that we could release the new version and include my e-mail to allow
people to comment those changes and to create new propositions. The "legacy"
variant will be availabe for the distributions, if they also does not want to
change anything.

Please let me know what you think about my proposition stated in this comment
and I will provide next version of full layout.

Bugzilla Upgrade Mass Bug Change

NEEDSINFO state was removed in Bugzilla 3.x, reopening any bugs previously listed as NEEDSINFO.

  - benjsc
    fd.o Wrangler

Marek,

I apologise, that bug got totally lost on my radar. Yes I think your proposal makes sense (at least the way you put it, before looking at the actual code). Would you please submit a patch?

Created attachment 54004 [details] [review]
Another proposition of modification to the layout.

Attached yet another proposition for a patch to the Polish keyboard map file.

The rationale for changes is following:

qQ → λΛ added for easy lambda-related writing;

wW → removed „ł” from under the ralt modifier (leads to common typos
like „błędół” instead of „błędów”);

jk → added «», common in proper Polish typography;

,  → added … (ellipsis);

vb → changed to support „proper” Polish typographer's quotes, the
“original” ones are still reachable with Vb;

4 → added eurosign and centsign around where the dollar is placed;

- – added the endash, for better endashing texts where there are no
provisions for automatic replacement of -- and the like into the
endash.

-    include "kpdl(comma)"
+    include "kpdl(dot)"

This last change is debatable – most users seem to find the keypad dot
far more useful than the comma – stuff like bc(1) and most programming
languages take floats written with a dot. A comma basically makes
sense in polonized spreadsheet programs which usually have provisions
for turning the keypad dot into a comma, anyway.

Could someone commend on those changes pls?

Under my GNOME 2.32, changing keypad decimal point to a dot is a normal option (which I never use - I do use programs and websites that _don't_ accept dot as decimal separator). I bet a programmer who inputs lots of float constants into his C programs will know how to change that (it's called "legacy layout" IIRC). On what grounds you say "most users" need a dot there? Most users aren't programmers...

Can you also explain why Euro sign would be under 4? I have yet to see a keyboard with € under 4. It's always under 5 (with optional pound/£ under 4), which Marek Madej observed first back in 2006 (and it's still correct).

(indows' standard of AltGr-U needs a mention too)

Created attachment 67695 [details] [review]
New proposal of Polish layout modification

I prepared yet another patch, it's quite well thought out and consistent, so maybe there will be finally a chance to change something. This bug has been unresolved for over 6 years ;)

I took into account suggestions expressed in previous comments:
- euro sign is on AltGr+5, where it is engraved on many keyboards in Poland
- Polish quote marks are added, but English are still available
- current layout is now available as "legacy"
- decimal separator is still comma, as it is Polish standard.

Proposed layout adds 30 useful characters that were unavailable in current layout. They include quotes and dashes („”, «», –, —), math (≠, ≈, ≤, ≥, π) and other symbols (€, ¢, §, ©). New characters are added mainly in place of duplicate characters - only a few characters are removed or moved, so proposed layout is mostly compatible with the current.
Detailed explanation of changes and visualisation of the proposed layout can be found at http://podziemie.net/xkb/proposal page.

Old typewriter layout and Windows-compatible layout can be added later too, but I think that first thing to do is to make the default layout more usable.

Anybody from Poland to review that patch?

From me:
1. You created new variant "legacy". Why not putting it to base.xml.in?
2. Why do you use the same group name "Polish"? Should it be "Polish - Legacy"?

Most important - will not people get angry that default Polish layout is changed?

I am the original reporter of this bug. The initial proposal was not well received by the other reviewers, so the current layout is still the same it used to be at least SIX years ago, including the characters not really useful in Poland, but missing "polish" quote chars or euro/cent characters. 
I guess the current layout is quite a "random" one: someone has customized some other layout to add the polish diacriticals, without any deep thoughts on it.

The Michał's proposal is the one quite well prepared. It DOES not change anything what is common in Poland. To be honest, I guess 90% of users does not use the characters outside the basic US layout and nine Polish diacritical letters (ąćęłńóśźż). Some of them are concerned that the euro sign (€) is not accessible by AltGr-5, but the rest is discovering the other characters just by mistyping.  So if you need my voice on changing the default layout - I am fully committed to it.

Created attachment 67749 [details] [review]
New proposal of Polish layout modification

Sergey, of course you are right, I changed group name for legacy layout and added it to base.xml.in.

I don't think that changing default layout this way could pose a problem. As Marek noticed (I observed this too), most Polish X.org users are unaware of characters available with AltGr, except for Polish letters. In my proposal these letters of course stay untouched. Other groups of characters that some people might get used to (dead keys, arrows) are left unchanged too. And if someone is really used to the current layout (I doubt that many people are, because it is very inconsistent and defective), it will be still available as "legacy".

Thanks to everybody! Committed!