[Richard Suchenwirth] 2002-02-27 - Combining two of my favorite topics, i18n and the [iPaq], 
here is a little study of a pen-pad keyboard for non-Latin writing systems. 
[Windows/CE] offers you a virtual keyboard among other input methods, but that is limited to your local locale. 
If I want to enter e.g. Greek, I have to go through some trouble - or do it in Tcl, of course ;-)

[WikiDbImage ikey.jpg]

I could not use an overrided [toplevel], so the current setup requires a [canvas] [widget].
In a global array, the alphabets of possible languages is stored. 
If you call iKey with one, the characters (plus some punctuation and special characters) 
are displayed on the canvas, which the caller has to provide (most sensibly 240 wide, 80 high). 
Tap on one, and it briefly flashes red and is inserted into the widget which has focus. 
Special characters are "_" which makes a space, and "<" which deletes the last character. 
For Hebrew, the cursor is moved left after insertion, to facilitate right-to-left writing.

======
 package require Tk

 proc ikey {c language} {
    wm title . "iKey: $language"
    set keys $::ikey($language)
    set f {{Bitstream Cyberbit} 10 bold}
   #set x 7; set y 7
    set x 7; set y 9
    $c delete all
    foreach key [clist $keys] {
       $c create text $x $y -text $key -tag ikey \
          -font $f
       if [incr x 15]>220 {set x 7; incr y 15}
    }
    $c bind ikey <1> {
      %W itemconf current -fill red
      after 200 "%W itemconf current -fill black"
      set c [%W itemcget current -text]
      if {$c=="<"} {
          event generate . <BackSpace>
      } else {
         if {$c=="_"} {set c " "}
         catch {[focus] insert insert $c }
         if {$c>="\u05d0" && $c<="\u05ea"} {
            event generate . <Left>
         }
      }
    }
 }

 # This routine turns a compact character list, 
 # e.g. {a-d fx z} into a regular one: {a b c d f x z}.
 proc clist list {
    set res ""
    foreach item [lappend list "_,;.<"] {
        if [regexp {^(.)-(.)$} $item -> from to] {
          scan $to %c to
           for {set i [scan $from %c]} {$i<=$to} {incr i} {
              lappend res [format %c $i]
           }
        } else {
           foreach i [split $item ""] {lappend res $i }
        }
    }
    set res
 }
 array set ::ikey {
  Cyrillic {\u0410-\u044f}
  Greek    {1-9 0 - \u0391-\u03a1 \u03a3-\u03c9}
  Hebrew   {\u05d0-\u05ea}
  German1  {\u00c4 \u00d6 \u00dc \u00df  \u00e4 \u00f6 \u00fc \u20ac}
  German2  {1-9 0 # ! ? ' \u0022
            a-m + -   n-z * /
            A-M = %   N-Z \u003c >
            @ \u00c4 \u00d6 \u00dc \u00df  \u00e4 \u00f6 \u00fc 
            ~ [ \\ ] \u007b | \u007d
            ^ \u00b0 \u0060 \u00a7 &
            $ \u20ac \u00a3 () }
  Thai      {\uE01-\uE3A \uE3F-\uE5B}
 }

 # As demo and self-test, here is a micro-app with an entry and a text, 
 # which have no function other than testing that focus is correct:
 if {[file tail [info script]]==[file tail $argv0]} {
    option add *Font {{Bitstream Cyberbit} 10}
    entry .e
  # text   .t -height 8 -width 1
  # canvas .c -width 240 -height  80 -bg yellow
    text   .t -height   6 -width   1
    canvas .c -height 110 -width 240 -bg yellow
    pack .e .t .c -fill x
    focus -force .t
    ikey .c Greek
    bind . <Return> {exec wish $argv0 &; exit}
    . config -menu [menu .m]
    .m add casc -label Language -menu [menu .m.l -tearoff 0]
    foreach i [array names ikey] {
      .m.l add comm -label $i -command "ikey .c $i"
    }
 }
======

[HJG] 2014-09-06 - I added one entry for german special characters to the table of alphabets,
plus another, with an almost complete set of chars as found on a keyboard.
Also added Thai, from [Keyboard widget].


'''See also:'''
   * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_font
   * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout
   * http://www.fileformat.info/info/charset/UTF-8/list.htm
   * http://billposer.org/Software/UnicodeDataBrowser.html

   * [i18n - Writing for the world]
   * [Unicode and UTF-8]
   * [Encoding Translations and i18n]
   * [The i18n package]
   * [Switching between Unicode codes and characters]
   * [Encoding table generator]
   * [Eurolish]

   * [i18n tester]
   * [A tiny input manager]
   * [A little Unicode editor]
   * [A simple Arabic renderer]
   * [A little Korean editor]
   * [taiku goes multilingual]
   * [Keyboard widget]

   * [http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelPad.html%|%BabelPad%|%]


<<categories>>PocketPC | Characters | Arts and crafts of Tcl-Tk programming