4 ms·

> Or typing 'o' + '¨' to produce 'ö' but realizing you wanted to type 'ô', there just one backspace press would revert it to 'o' again and you could press '^' t

by gumby 3y ago

> Or typing 'o' + '¨' to produce 'ö' but realizing you wanted to type 'ô', there just one backspace press would revert it to 'o' again and you could press '^' to get the 'ô'. This is a good example because in German I would expect 'o' + '¨' + <delete> to leave no character at all while in French I would expect 'e' + '`' + <delete> to leave the e behind because in my mind it was a typo. The rendering of brahmic- and arabic-derived scripts makes these choices even more interesting.

makapuf 3y ago
In French, è is a single character issued by a single keypress on a French keyboard, like e, or +. (Note that A is shift+a). Why should it need two backspaces? If you press e+` well you have e`, not è.
- NikolaNovak 3y ago
  I am assuming that means "on French keyboard", not "in French". I have a usa keyboard and live in Canada...Every now and then it thinks I'm typing French and keyboard indeed behaves in a way that some vowel plus some quotation mark indeed gives me some other character (that I don't need :)
  - kergonath 3y ago
    That would feel very strange to me. The Canadian layout probably behaves differently, but à is a modifier letter, not two letters. I’d expect backspace to remove the whole letter, including the accent.
    - NikolaNovak 3y ago
      Oh, it's strange to me too! I curse every time I accidentally hit that setting and my computer seems possessed :) It appears there's a few keyboard layouts and language options: French (Canada) - Canadian French French (Canada) - Canadian Multilingual Standard French (France) etc And then I think it intersects with what keyboard you actually have. Some of these layouts maybe are designed to enable you to type in French characters on a non-French keyboard? Not sure.
posix86 3y ago
But typing "ö" (e.g. swiss keyboard) and pressing delete & getting an o would be annoying af
- gumby 3y ago
  Definitely agree with that! I use a US kbd (incl on phone) no matter what language I’m writing in. A little annoying but switching kbd layouts is more disruptive for me.
- jraph 3y ago
  Same for a French keyboard with éèàù which are all typed using one key. But even êôûæœäëïöü, all typed using at least two keys, if not 3 with a compose key (from memory, I'm using a phone). Everybody is used to the way it has been working on all OSes.
- riggsdk 3y ago
  I realize that the editor would be the system to keep track of how the character was entered for this to work. If you made the character from a single keypress it would only make sense that backspace also undid the entire character. Only if you created the character from multiple keypresses it would make sense to "undo" only part of it with backspace (at least until you move away from the character).
  - hunter2_ 3y ago
    > make sense to "undo" only part of it with backspace I'm not sure that ever really makes sense: it would be a misnomer if "backspace" didn't bring you "back" some amount of horizontal "space," I reckon. This logic holds up not only for cases like ö and emoji (where I'd hope the whole grapheme disappears), but also for scenarios like if one types <f><i> and an <fi> ligature appears, where I'd hope only the <i> disappears: that's fine because you are still going back some space. If the key ever gets repurposed from "backspace" to "undo" then I would agree that it should step back to the previous state with as much granularity as possible.
    - 3y ago

by gumby 3y ago

makapuf 3y ago

In French, è is a single character issued by a single keypress on a French keyboard, like e, or +. (Note that A is shift+a). Why should it need two backspaces? If you press e+` well you have e`, not è.

NikolaNovak 3y ago
I am assuming that means "on French keyboard", not "in French". I have a usa keyboard and live in Canada...Every now and then it thinks I'm typing French and keyboard indeed behaves in a way that some vowel plus some quotation mark indeed gives me some other character (that I don't need :)
- kergonath 3y ago
  That would feel very strange to me. The Canadian layout probably behaves differently, but à is a modifier letter, not two letters. I’d expect backspace to remove the whole letter, including the accent.
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    Oh, it's strange to me too! I curse every time I accidentally hit that setting and my computer seems possessed :) It appears there's a few keyboard layouts and language options: French (Canada) - Canadian French French (Canada) - Canadian Multilingual Standard French (France) etc And then I think it intersects with what keyboard you actually have. Some of these layouts maybe are designed to enable you to type in French characters on a non-French keyboard? Not sure.

posix86 3y ago

But typing "ö" (e.g. swiss keyboard) and pressing delete & getting an o would be annoying af

gumby 3y ago
Definitely agree with that! I use a US kbd (incl on phone) no matter what language I’m writing in. A little annoying but switching kbd layouts is more disruptive for me.
jraph 3y ago
Same for a French keyboard with éèàù which are all typed using one key. But even êôûæœäëïöü, all typed using at least two keys, if not 3 with a compose key (from memory, I'm using a phone). Everybody is used to the way it has been working on all OSes.
riggsdk 3y ago
I realize that the editor would be the system to keep track of how the character was entered for this to work. If you made the character from a single keypress it would only make sense that backspace also undid the entire character. Only if you created the character from multiple keypresses it would make sense to "undo" only part of it with backspace (at least until you move away from the character).
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  > make sense to "undo" only part of it with backspace I'm not sure that ever really makes sense: it would be a misnomer if "backspace" didn't bring you "back" some amount of horizontal "space," I reckon. This logic holds up not only for cases like ö and emoji (where I'd hope the whole grapheme disappears), but also for scenarios like if one types <f><i> and an <fi> ligature appears, where I'd hope only the <i> disappears: that's fine because you are still going back some space. If the key ever gets repurposed from "backspace" to "undo" then I would agree that it should step back to the previous state with as much granularity as possible.
  - 3y ago