Re: Swapping default input method: why so complicated?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:52:43 +0000 (UTC) Ilya Zakharevich 
<nospam-abuse@ilyaz.org> wrote: 

IZ> For most primitive situations, "toggling" input method is a good
IZ> paradigm - but I would need a two-level toggle: two choices for Latin
IZ> (US and international) and two choices for Cyrillic (GOST and
IZ> foreign).  (A "sane" international input method [one which is
IZ> equivalent to US without pressing AltGr] would reduce it to 3, but it
IZ> is not available [outside of Emacs] on many architectures...)

IZ> So in this situation one needs two-level toggle: one between targets
IZ> (Latin/Cyrillic), another between flavors for each target.  This gives
IZ> one of the Emacs interface designs: it should be easy to allow people
IZ> to code such multi-level switches programmatically, without a need to
IZ> write monstrosities similar to what I did.

I think that's a very unusual need.  Most people will be happy with
cycling between input methods (if that).  So I'd rather make you write
one custom function than enable a complicated two-level setup for
everyone.  This is just MHO, of course, and perhaps the Emacs developers
feel differently.

IZ> Experience shows that for me, most other input needs would
IZ> be satisfied by suitable prefix keys (for the duration of next
IZ> character) for input of greek, hebrew, half a dozen of flavors of
IZ> math.  The current Emacs approach (where one needs to type the long
IZ> name of the encoding) does not fit the bills.  (Outside Emacs, I use
IZ> F-keys to switch to one-char input methods; so F5 b inputs beta, and
IZ> F6 + would input "union sign".  But in Emacs, they already bound for
IZ> other repetitive stuff...)

Just use Pascal's direct-set example.  That's the easiest solution to
your needs, I think.

Ted