[Tux4kids-tuxtype-dev] Key mapping bug

[David Bruce]

Hi Matthew,

On 8/26/09, Matthew Trey <tux4kids at treyhome.com> wrote:
> When in any practice mode (lesson or phrase typing) the bottom row of keys
> is always 1 off when flashing the hint.  This is due them being 1 off in
> alphabet.c  D01 is actually the extra key from the international keyboard,
> and Z should be D02.  Patch is below.
>

Thanks - I'll apply it.

>
> What is the plan for handling other (international) key mappings?  I noticed
> a comment in the source about finding a better way to load in the keyboard.
> Perhaps in the themes/*/keyboard.lst a third field containing the key
> location is a good solution at least for the short term?

A  year or so ago I tried to find out if there was any cross-platform
way to query the OS to get the key mappings, and couldn't figure out
any way to do so.  At about that time, there was a thread on the SDL
dev list about key mappings and IIRC SDL 1.3
will have a way to do this (or at least a way to query what characters
are "typable" - can't remember if we could find out what physical key
they are mapped to).  I don't remember the specifics now.

Anyway, I concluded that we are stuck with the error-prone
keyboard.lst files for the time being.  If someone who really knows
this stuff well gets involved with tuxtype, we might be able to come
up with something better.

Cheers,

David Bruce

btw - welcome to the project!  Tim is going to activate you as a
member on Alioth.