missing russian characters when using G1 physical keyboard

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. switch to russian keyboard with ALT-SPACE on G1 physical keyboard
2. try entering russian text with the russian letters located on the following 
buttons of computer's 
physical keyboard: []\;',./

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
There's no way to enter those russian letters from the physical keyboard. 
Ideally, I'd like to have the 
ALT+botton remapped to those of russian letters when in russian keyboard.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
OpenEclair 1.3, AnySoftKeyboard from market, version 20100328-x-dvtel

Original issue reported on code.google.com by stangri%...@gtempaccount.com on 6 Apr 2010 at 12:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Which letters are suppose to be displayed when typing these keys ([]\;',./)?

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 7 Apr 2010 at 7:03

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"[]\;',./" => "хъёжэбю/"

Let me know if you want it attached in a UTF-8 file or split by letters.

Thanks!

Original comment by stangri%...@gtempaccount.com on 7 Apr 2010 at 2:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Since there are not enough keys on the G1's hardware keyboard to accommodate 
for all
Russian letters, the last 2 keys on each row produce the letters you are 
looking for
when pressed in a quick succession.

Try this. Switch to Russian layout.  Then on the hardware keyboard press the 
key with
English letter "o" twice quickly - instead of 2 "щ" it will produce a singe 
"х".  The
same happens for keys "p", "k", "l", "m" and "," - pressing them twice rapidly
produces "ъ", "ж", "э", "б" and "ю" respectively.  As far as the symbol 
"/" goes, it
works just fine on my G1 via Alt + period.

Original comment by dbris...@gmail.com on 10 Apr 2010 at 12:27

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Forgot to add that for Russian Phonetic layout it's a bit different.  We had to
resort to transliteration.  This means taking an input of 2 letters pressed one 
right
after the other and turning them into a Russian counterpart.

For example, to get "ж" you press "z" very quickly followed by "h".  Here's a
complete list of transliterated letters:
"ж" = "z" + "h"
"щ" = "w" + "w"
"э" = "e" + "e"
"ю" = "u" + "u"
"ь" = "," + ","
"ъ" = "." + "."

Original comment by dbris...@gmail.com on 10 Apr 2010 at 12:38

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@stangri.web, that does work for you?

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 11 Apr 2010 at 6:38

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, thanks for your prompt reply and sorry, was spending time with magic. Just 
tried these on a dream -- yeah, it 
does work. It's a bit unorthodox tho, will take some time to adjust. Also, 
there are quite a few words in russian 
with double л ('лл') so for quick typist it might be an issue.

It's a great workaround, it will probably work very well for me as I rarely 
have to type in Russian, but I'd consider 
remapping "[]\;',./" as well if more people complain. Or better yet have 3 
russian keyboards: current, phonetic and 
remapped. :) Whatever you do, your app is seriously cool, I have no idea what 
would I have done without it.

Original comment by stangri%...@gtempaccount.com on 11 Apr 2010 at 6:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Since we'll support external packages very soon, we could easily add new 
layouts.
@dbriskin, what do you think about creating a new layout with the ALT remaping?

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 11 Apr 2010 at 10:01

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Type-Defect

[GoogleCodeExporter]

From what I remember from looking at the code, adding the mappings is fairly 
easy, so
I don't see why we can't simply add these extra mappings to the Russian standard
layout.  That way you can have it both ways without having to create a 3rd 
layout. 
Of course this means that in order to type the actual characters "[", "]", "\", 
";",
"'", "?", and "/", you'd have to switch to English layout.

The main problem though is that these mappings aren't at all apparent to users. 
 This
issue is a perfect example of that.  For stangri.web there was no way to know 
about
the mappings until he asked.  Imagine how many users never bothered come to 
this site
to open an issue, and simply figured it was a bug and uninstalled the app.

I think the cleaner solution would be to allow customizing of these 
transliterated
letters via a menu.  Or of any letter, for that matter!  Basically a new menu 
entry
in the Settings screen that allows you to pick any letter from the current 
alphabet
(in this case - Russian) and then specify any two keys (including the Alt key) 
to
represent it when they are pressed in a quick succession.

I should probably open a new issue for this request.

Original comment by dbris...@gmail.com on 11 Apr 2010 at 3:37

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@dbriskin, what if these keys will be mapped to their original character when 
using ALT?

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 12 Apr 2010 at 12:40

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@dbriskin I just wanted to clarify your comments. Did you mean that the current 
mappings are not apparent or 
what I suggested is not apparent?

I don't see how what I suggested is not apparent -- that's where the letters 
are on a computer keyboard and I 
suggest same mappings for the android devices keyboards.

Do you have a better solution?

Original comment by stangri%...@gtempaccount.com on 12 Apr 2010 at 12:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@menny: I think stangri.web is proposing the letters be mapped to the ALT-state 
of
the keys.

@stangri.web: I meant that currently there are no indications in the app that 
the
mappings even exist.  You would only find out by stumbling upon them 
accidentally. 
Your solution of adding the mappings to the ALT state of the keys would work 
fine
(except for when you would actually want to type those ALT-state characters).

What I'd like to do is open a new "feature request" issue that would allow 
anyone to
define their own mappings, for any language.  It would allow users to see the 
default
mappings, as well as edit them or add their own.  For example, someone using a
Russian Phonetic layout might not like the way "ю" is mapped to "u" + "u", and 
would
edit it to be "j" + "u".  Or they would be able to add "ч" as "c" + "h".

Original comment by dbris...@gmail.com on 12 Apr 2010 at 1:44

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@dbriskin, but it wont be 
reasonable, right?
i mean, the russian characters 
should be the primary. I did 
something similar with question 
mark and an Hebrew character. 

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 14 Apr 2010 at 5:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks for making the phonetic layout. I use the recently 
released ASUS Eee Pad Transformer with hardware dock/keyboard. Using the 
original Android Russian layout is pure hell, as there are no markings on the 
keyboard. Your app is a life saver in this regard. 

I'd like to comment on the issue of how to map the extra Cyrillic letters, I 
believe you asked about that in one of the other threads. Using double-letter 
system is not a bad idea for casual typing, it does very well for SMS or most 
of the tasks one does on a phone. On a tablet, however, typing can become a 
much more heavy duty task. I myself use the Eee Transformer/dock combo for 
writing articles. Many posters on XDA report using the same device for work 
purposes, since there is a pretty decent Office app. 

On my PC I have mapped the extra Russian keys to numbers. E.g. 3 became Э, due 
to some resemblance, followed by ЁЪЬЙЮ. J is Ж in my version, it seems to 
be used more frequently than the Й mapping, hence I put Ж in the "main" set. 

I use the Numpad to type numbers, or sometimes I just switch to the US layout 
for those. On the physical Android keyboard I would suggest using CTRL to type 
numbers. This way one gets access to the entire Cyrillic alphabet without 
double strokes, while retaining access to all punctuation symbols and numbers. 
Numbers, after all, are not used all that often. 

What do you guys think of this approach? 

Original comment by maxim.ko...@gmail.com on 1 Aug 2011 at 7:09

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It sounds a nice idea, although it will require additional coding.

I lack Russian language knowledge and a I do not own a hardware keyboard 
device, so it is very hard for me to keep the Russian pack alive.
I'd be happy to get some coding help

Original comment by menn...@gmail.com on 3 Aug 2011 at 10:15

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am willing to offer my time, although I am not really a programmer. I am a 
native Russian speaker though, and I do know how to read code and maybe even 
adjust it a little (been studying Actionscript for a while, using Flash Builder 
to compile). 

Writing up some documentation I can do as well (English or Russian). Let me 
know how can I help. 

Original comment by maxim.ko...@gmail.com on 3 Aug 2011 at 10:28