Re: ISSUE-23 (Key Indentifier Case): Should Key Identifiers prioritize uppercase characters [DOM3 Events]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 11:04 PM, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote:
> A reasonable argument, but I would counter that the keys are simply
> mislabeled, because of long-ago imprecision on typewriters that we need not
> perpetuate.  The identity of the key is not what is printed on the keycap,
> but what the operating system thinks the key is, at the time that the key is
> pressed.

maybe.

> When I hit the key labeled "1" on my keyboard with no modifiers, it
> generated the character "1" (intuitive enough); with the "shift" modifier,
> it generates the character "!".

not on my n810s.

in fact, it doesn't even trigger the key labeled on my keyboard in a
bunch of cases.

i can't trigger a '1' key w/o using the Fn key, and if i want a /, i
often have to use \ (again w/ fn), or was it the other way around? (it
varies based on the manufactured region of the device and the current
locale of the device, resulting in the keys being incorrectly labeled
for me more often than not).

i have no idea what you guys expect to have happen when my IME tries
to complete 'he' to 'hello', but i'd probably likely to know. (From
experience, what we do today breaks the web, or at least Google
[Reader].)

> Both of those characters are printed on the
> key, as it happens: "1|!"; the key identifiers set naturally includes both
> characters.   By contrast, when I hit the key labeled "Q" on my keyboard
> with no modifiers, it generates the character "q", and only generates the
> character "Q" when it is modified with "shift" or "capslock".

this isn't true for my e61i or my n810, both of which have this nasty
habbit of being in Sentence capitalization mode.

> So, really,
> the label should read "q|Q", and we should provide key identifiers for both
> upper- and lower-case characters.

I'd much rather we worked from some sort of classical keyboard instead
of an idealized keyboard. Trying to explain what actually happens to
people is such a mess and has no value.

However, please note that bugzilla.mozilla.org has some very amusing
bugs from locale users complaining about just how they want ctrl-c to
work in dvorak and non latin and other strange layouts. Very
complicated, and I believe not entirely reconcilable. [Note:
bugzilla.mozilla.org is an open database, anyone may query it, if you
need help, you're free to ask someone.]

> Further, when a QWERTY keyboard is remapped to a Dvorak layout, but the
> labels on the keys remain unchanged, a typist would expect that hitting the
> key labeled "Q" would result in an apostrophe... they would expect the same
> behavior if they had bothered switching the keycaps, as well as remapping.

see above. mappings are so much fun.

>  If they were asked to type "Q" or "q", they would naturally hit the key
> that, on my keyboard, is labeled "X".  The same goes for any remapping, such
> as when an US keyboard is repurposed to some other alphabet.

see above. mappings are so much fun.

> We've already determined that we can not and should not identify a key by
> keyboard layout, i.e. the physical position of the keys; the same applies to
> what is printed on the keycap, even more so.

I'm not sure which I'd favor, but i'm fairly certain i'd rather the
keys for ASCII A-Z either always be uppercase or always be lowercase
and require people to ask 'isShift()' (even if the platform is using
some other crazy way of shifting). Trying to explain how the e61i or
the n810 handle Shifting to web authors is unreasonable (I can barely
explain it, and I work on one of them and use both daily).

> If the Director deems it necessary, in the course of Rec-track transition,
> for DOM3 Events to represent only the values that are printed on the keycap,
> I will take an action to go door-to-door and manually correct each keyboard
> (by force if necessary).  I am aware that this may take some time (even
> weeks, perhaps), but I believe that that would be a more logical and
> pragmatic approach than for DOM3 Events to munge all Latinate characters
> into the uppercase.

> We all know that typing in all caps is rude, and
> forcing all keyboard events to SHOUT would degrade the bounds of polite
> society.

would it be better to define these things as DOM_KEY_A and give them
numeric values instead of letters? that way you couldn't actually just
use the key :). [No, I'm not quite seriously suggesting that, as I
know there's  probably some web compat to be considered, although I
haven't seen it here in this conversation].

Received on Sunday, 29 June 2008 21:38:11 UTC