270439 - WinWord/TextPad dead keys are not supported

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Widget: Win32, enhancement)

Description

[Kai Bolay]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910

I'm using a US-English keyboard on a US-English Windows XP machine. 

Yet, both MS-WinWord and TextPad (and probably many more applications)  support
entering accented characters and umlauts using CTRL-<:> + [aeiou] for äëïöü,
CTRL-<'> + [aeiou] for áéíóó, CTRL -<`> + [aeiou] for àèìòì, as well all,
CTRL-<&>+<s> for ß, CTRL-<,>+<c> for ç, CTRL-</>+<o> for ø, and probably a few
more.  

It would be very, very convenient to be able to use the same "dead keys" when
composing e-mail (or filling out web forms or even creating web wages) with Mozilla.

I know Windows XP allows me to select a "United States-International" IME. This
IME works with Mozilla, but the "dead keys" are <"> <'> <`> <~>, etc. (without
any CTRL). These dead keys get into the way of normal typing.

Supoorting the MS-WinWord and TextPad compatible "dead keys" would allow anyone
to enter "special" characters without having to switch keyboard drivers and
impeding normal text entry.


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Using a US-English keyboard on a US-English Windows XP machine and try to enter
and umlaut or accented character using MS-WinWord/TextPad shortcuts into a
textbox or the compose window for mail. 

Actual Results:  
CTRL+<'>+<e> will produce "e", not "é". Similar results with all other shortcuts.


Expected Results:  
produce "é" and honer all other "dead keys"

Comment 1

[timeless]

could you please find a url @microsoft.com which documents this behavior? i
tried mso2k3's online help and couldn't find anything (i didn't try very hard,
but my quick searches all failed)

Comment 2

[Kai Bolay]

(In reply to comment #1)

> could you please find a url @microsoft.com which documents this behavior?

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/hfws.aspx?AssetID=HP051865621033

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 275025 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Simos Xenitellis]

Can someone find if this functionality is system-wide (API to access it) or it
is application specific (which user DLL)?

Comment 5

[Dainis Jonitis]

No, this behaviour is MS Word specific. Ms Excel, MS Wordpad and MS Notepad do
not support this feature. The MS Character Map does not show these key
combinations as system wide shortcut keys either.
If one decides that this feature should be implemented then most likely it
should be cross platform and not limited to Win32 widget code only.

Comment 6

[Kai Bolay]

(In reply to comment #5)

> No, this behaviour is MS Word specific. Ms Excel, MS Wordpad and MS Notepad do
> not support this feature.

In fact MS WordPad (Version 5.1, Build 2600_xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) DOES
support this feature. Excel, and Notepad don't.

 > The MS Character Map does not show these key
 > combinations as system wide shortcut keys either.

Unfortunately :-(

> If one decides that this feature should be implemented 

Please! ;-)

 > then most likely it should be cross platform and not limited 
 > to Win32 widget code only.

I wouldn't mind that. Thanks!

Comment 7

[Dainis Jonitis]

Ok, I like the idea enough to try to implement this using XBL. If someone thinks
that this won't work or XBL is totally wrong approach, please speake up now,
before I finished to read all these specs :)

Comment 8

[Kai Bolay]

I've written an extension which fixes this problem for Firefox and Thunderbird. Please check out http://zombiekeys.bolay.us/zombiekeys.xpi and let me know what you think. Since this is my first Mozilla extension I'm hoping to get it reviewed widely so I can make improvements if needed.

Comment 9

[nemo]

You know, I'd swear there was another project that did this, can't seem to find it though.
Just to be confusing there are a number of different ways to trigger digraphs that any friendly project would allow a user familiar with that combination to use.

Putty uses super + tick + letter
Screen uses ^A^V + tick + letter  (most annoying due to extra ^A trigger needed by screen)
Vim uses ^K + tick + letter
All 3 have loosely same format, but the sets don't perfectly overlap (Vim's is nicest and most nicely documented IMO).
And of course, Vim offers entry of arbitrary chars by unicode hex, similar to the decimal variant listed in zombiekeys docs.

I seem to remember that that aforementioned project I had used thoughtfully did a union of various sets of digraphs and also allowed the user to choose the starting input trigger.
I'm having no luck finding it, however.

Comment 10

[Óvári]

@Realraven (Axel Grude), Kai Bolay:
Any chance that you could implement this in the LibreOffice Office productivity suite:
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71176

Thanks

Comment 11

[Robin Bankhead]

I'd just like to ask whether this was resolved WONTFIX due to the functionality being implemented in the ZombieKeys addon?

If so, given that Quantum has broken that addon (and rules out the creation of any similar addon, AIUI), might this be re-opened?

Comment 12

[Axel Grude]

(In reply to Robin Bankhead from comment #11)

I'd just like to ask whether this was resolved WONTFIX due to the
functionality being implemented in the ZombieKeys addon?

If so, given that Quantum has broken that addon (and rules out the creation
of any similar addon, AIUI), might this be re-opened?

I am working on a new version for Thunderbird 91 / 102 thought you might want to know. Preview available here:

https://github.com/RealRaven2000/ZombieKeys/issues/2

Comment 13

[Robin Bankhead]

Hi Axel, that's good to see! I couldn't wait so I made a solution with bash and xdotool to use desktop-wide, but thanks for the shout anyway - glad if TB users can have this facility again.

Shame Firefox will not see it :(

Comment 14

[Axel Grude]

(In reply to Robin Bankhead from commelnt #13)

Hi Axel, that's good to see! I couldn't wait so I made a solution with bash and xdotool to use desktop-wide, but thanks for the shout anyway - glad if TB users can have this facility again.

Shame Firefox will not see it :(

There is a good chance I will port it to that as well, as I am using the new mail extension format (which is basically a web extension) - we just have some special APIs for the mail world, but in Firefox it should be possible to interact with web pages at least. (Search boxes in Fx itself may be a different story; I can still have privileged access in Tb using experimental APIs which I want to use to edit search boxes and subject line, but the old mechanism of writing XBL bindings is completely gone.

At the moment I am writing this for myself so I can finally migrate my production profile from Thunderbird 68 (all my other Add-ons are already compatible with Thunderbird 102). Once I am happy that it works I will publish it on ATN, and then think about Firefox conversion.