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Unicode and Keyboards on Windows

Unicode and Keyboards on Windows. Michael Kaplan Cathy Wissink. Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technology Windows International Microsoft. Who is this talk geared towards?. This is a high-level introduction to keyboards on Windows, assuming no prior knowledge. Audience:

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Unicode and Keyboards on Windows

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  1. Unicode and Keyboards on Windows Michael KaplanCathy Wissink Globalization Infrastructure and Font Technology Windows International Microsoft

  2. Who is this talk geared towards? • This is a high-level introduction to keyboards on Windows, assuming no prior knowledge. • Audience: • Developers new to concept • People who need to understand keyboards enough to understand how applications can work with them • Not completely intended to be a “nuts and bolts” talk Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  3. Keyboards are simple, right? • Fonts • Rendering engines • 135 different locales on Windows • Custom keyboard layouts Turns out they are not so simple! Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  4. Keyboard Layout, defined • A collection of data for each keystroke and shift state combination with a particular keyboard driver (DLL) • In other words, it is not the keyboard hardware but the software that connects the hardware to the system Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  5. Anatomy of a keystroke • User presses a key • Key contains a scan code • Keyboard layout DLL maps the scan code to a virtual key (VK) • OS sends the VK to the application • If asked, the DLL maps the VK/shift state to characters (if they are assigned) Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  6. Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  7. Language features • single character keystrokes • ligatures • dead keys • shift states • SGCap • Caps lock key Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  8. Ligatures For keyboard layouts, not the same as the typographic/linguistic term A combination of 2 to 4 UTF-16 code points inserted by a single keystroke Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  9. Examples of ligatures on keyboard Tamil keyboard in the shifted state, showing linguistic characters Sri, Ksa, and others as ligatures Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  10. Dead keys • A combination of two keystrokes to insert a single character • Used often in European languages for diacritics • Called “dead” since the first keystroke does not appear to do anything • Not intuitive to people who are not used to them Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  11. Input keys Type ¨ (deadkey) Type ¨ + a Type ¨ + A Type ¨ + o Type ¨ + O ... Type ¨ + <space> Result Nothing ä Ä ö Ö ... ¨ (spacing diaeresis) Dead key example:Diaeresis on the Finnish keyboard Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  12. Shift states • Only 47-48 physical keys to work with on the keyboard • Shift states expand that number by many times • For languages with casing, usually they are cased variants of each other • More shift states available (AltGr, Ctrl) Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  13. The Greek Keyboard, shifted and unshifted Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  14. Caps lock • Usually intended to be a persistent Shift keypress (in other words, it acts like a typewriter caps lock) • Generally used to get at shift state without having to press two keys concurrently • Often used with cased languages • May do nothing in languages without case, or be used for other purposes Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  15. SGCap • Advanced usage of the Caps Lock key • Used by Swiss German, Czech, and Hebrew keyboards • Adds two additional shift states • Only intuitive to people who understand the mechanism Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  16. APIs • keybd_event • MapVirtualKey[Ex] • OemKeyScan • SendInput • ToAscii[Ex] • ToUnicode[Ex] • VkKeyScan[Ex] The APIs allow developers to do the same mappings the OS does when moving between scan codes, VKs, and characters. Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  17. Factors in keyboard layout creation • National/regional standard? • What languages need to be supported? • Is the set of characters needed for the language complete? • Focus on code points and not glyphs? • Do all required characters exist in Unicode? • Consistent use of features such as dead keys, ligatures, etc.? Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  18. Where do IMEs fit in? • For most languages, they don’t! • For CJK languages, even 47 keys X 8 shift states is not enough • Different mechanisms and APIs are used for IME interaction • More information can be found in the Platform SDK (http://msdn.microsoft.com/platformsdk) Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  19. FAQs about keyboards • Does Microsoft make these layouts up? • How do I add every glyph for my language? • Don’t I need an IME? • How do I replace the layout for my language if I do not like the one provided? • How do I add my own keyboard layout? Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  20. MSKLCMicrosoft Keyboard Layout Creator • Create new keyboard layouts: • Brand new layouts • Modified from existing keyboards • Deploy the created keyboard layout to NT4, Win2000, WinXP, or Win Server 2003 machines • Save the definition of the keyboard for later development Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  21. MSKLC demos Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  22. Other References • This tutorial's corresponding paper • Windows Keyboard Layoutshttp://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.aspx • Nadine Kano, Developing International Software (out of print, but still available on the web)http://microsoft.com/globaldev/dis_v1/disv1.asp • New! Developing International Software , 2nd editionhttp://microsoft.com/globaldev/dis_v2/disv2.asp • Internationalization with Visual Basichttp://i18nWithVB.com/ • Get on the MSKLC Beta! Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  23. Questions? Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

  24. Don't forget to fill out your evaluations! Unicode and Keyboards on Windows Prague, Czech Republic (IUC23)

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