[Python-bugs-list] Tk-based widgets misbehave with dead keys (PR#376)

[fstajano@uk.research.att.com]

Full_Name: Frank Stajano
Version: 1.6a2
OS: Windows 98 and 2000
Submission from: xadhoom.al.cl.cam.ac.uk (128.232.15.185)


This is a problem of the underlying widget set and not of Idle itself, but Idle
is where I encountered it (I normally use Emacs), and since Python 1.6 is the
unicode version I suppose it's worth looking into anyway (what good is it to
have international chars if you can't input them ;-)).

If, on Windows, you use a keyboard layout with dead keys, such as "United States
- International", then Idle does not respond properly to dead keys. In
particular, double-quote comes out as single-quote; single-quote comes out as
space; and accented characters come out as non-accented.

The lack of support for the accented chars is a minor nuisance, but the problems
with quotes are a major one -- Idle is almost unusable under these
circumstances. Not as bad as Pythonwin, though, which just crashes.

[As you will know, the US-I keyboard defines things like single-quote and
double-quote as dead keys so that one can produce accents and umlauts
respectively by following the dead key with the appropriate vowel. To produce a
double-quote on its own, you have to press double-quote followed by space.]