Re: Is X lam-alef key OK?; technical detail

[Thamer Mahmoud <thamer at newkuwait dot org>]

pflm52td at w6 dot dion dot ne dot jp writes:
 > Lam-alef, bound to key "b" belongs to the Unicode presentation block B.
 > Imagine, it is like a piece of metal type of "isolated lam-alef", 
 > picked up as an element of printing press.
 > Components of this category are to appear on your PC screen, or
 > to be printed on paper.

I've seen this before on some programs. It became less of a trouble
after switching to a UTF-8 locale (i.e. being able to handle
inputing/saving characters in the presentational forms range).

Also while using applications that are unaware of this problem,
it is very much reproduceable when using non UTF-8 encodings. For
instance, when saving files that includes a keyboard inserted
presentational lam-alef in Windows-1256 files.

 > X Window System does not allow a sequence of symbols to be bound to
 > a key. Only one symbol is possible. The architecture is now found
 > unsatisfactory, but it can not be changed easily. It would be a big, big
 > change.

Is there a bug or a discussion about this somewhere?

I completely ignore the 'b' key, but I'm not sure how
significant that would be for Arabic touch typing. I also find other
solutions like scim to be truly an overkill.

Sometimes, I see trouble with delete key behavior and cursor movement
near lam-alef characters in QT apps, but this might not be related or
not even an up-to-date issue (I'm on maybe a little outdated system
for desktop use, Debian Sarge).

 > But mozilla / firefox, which Arabeyes members seem to take part in,
 > was originally written mainly by non-Arabs. They are only Unicode-aware,
 > not of the above workaround. For example, when I type in firefox-1.0.6
 > (the latest of the stable release), "as-salaam", seen and lam-alef 
 > do not appear combined. 
 > What is worse is that it is not even letters of lam and alef in Arabic
 > language, but just a piece of metal type!
 > 

On a related note, here is a bug that I'm facing on Firefox's lam-alef
handling with selections and cursor movements.  Could any one please
have a look and confirm:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=271057

Regards,
Thamer Mahmoud