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Add compose seq's for ASCII symbols absent from Cyrillic layouts to ru_RU

Intro

JCUKEN (ЙЦУКЕН) layout and its derivatives is a de-facto standard for many Cyrillic scripts (Bashkir, Tatar, Belarusian, Kazakh, Russian, Tajik, Ukrainian, Yakut, etc.) and is the only one printed on mass-produced Cyrillic keyboards (in the form of QWERTY/ЙЦУКЕН pair) and, like QWERTY, it has a number of flaws. One of the very annoying ones is that most of the punctuation marks were moved from their QWERTY positions to uppercase number row to make space for 33+ Cyrillic letters, and ~`@#$^&[]{}|'<> were removed altogether. This is a major PITA for programmers, scientists, tech writers and translators who type in two or more languages (one has to Alt+Shift, Shift+4, Alt+Shift to type $). A number of projects try to fix this, including alt layouts, AHK scripts, custom XCompose maps, etc. (examples below), but no simple solution available OOTB yet. JCUKEN.svg

Proposal

Add sequences like

<Multi_key> <colon> <space>	: "^"	asciicircum # CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT

and maybe also

<Multi_key> <space> <colon>	: "^"	asciicircum # CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT

to ru_RU.UTF-8/Compose (and possibly other languages with JCUKEN-based layouts) for all the missing characters, so that they can be entered using the same keys as in QWERTY. The <Multi_key> <symbol> <space> and <Multi_key> <space> <symbol> pattern is established in Spacing versions of accents section of en_US and is not used anywhere else.

Complete file: ru_RU.UTF-8_Compose.pre

Advantages

  • Doesn't require inventing and memorizing many sequences — the keys are the same as in QWERTY, only prefixed with Compose (and trailing space is typed naturally).
  • Uses existing Compose key approach and tries to follow established patterns.
  • Doesn't require dedicated modifier keys.
  • Completely non-invasive, doesn't break existing UX.
  • Doesn't touch en_US.

Drawbacks

A couple of proposed sequences, namely

<Multi_key> <quotedbl> <space>	: "@"	at # COMMERCIAL AT
<Multi_key> <semicolon> <space>	: "$"	dollar # DOLLAR SIGN

override ones in en_US:

<Multi_key> <quotedbl> <space>	: "¨"	diaeresis # DIAERESIS
<Multi_key> <semicolon> <space>	: "˛"	ogonek # OGONEK

While unfortunate, this is not critical, as spacing diaeresis is available in other sequences, and ogonek is not used in Cyrillic. As this proposal only covers Cyrillic layout(s) without touching en_US, these conflicts may be considered minor.

Alternative approaches

  • Use a "switch layout while pressed" modifier (grp:switch and other ...switch options in xkb-options). Convenient, but requires a dedicated mod key, and JCUKEN is crowded already. Same is for custom AltGr layer. Definitely not something to impose upon users by default. By contrast, Compose can be mapped to an existing key in a "tap for Compose, hold for Modifier" manner.

  • Use a dead key like <dead_somekey> <quotedbl>. Requires some dead key to be set up to a non-standard behavior, so not an option. (Side note: it would be nice to have dead_latin and dead_cyrillic, similar to dead_greek).

  • Add compose sequences in style of the ones in Characters that may be difficult to access section of en_US. While this proposal fits there nicely, it requires inventing new sequences of look-alike chars, which seems challenging, given the overall limited repertoire of symbols in JCUKEN (.,"-_?!();:/\=+%*№). More importantly, it requires users to learn a number of different sequences. This proposal, instead, uses a unified pattern, and the chars are printed on keycaps, nothing to memorize.

  • Add sequences as proposed, but with shorter/simpler patterns, like <Multi_key> <quotedbl> <quotedbl> or <Multi_key> <quotedbl>. Both, especially the latter, override too many things in en_US, compared to a couple minor ones in the proposal. It seems that other possible sequences are similarly either too conflicting, or too complex to type/memorize.

  • Input method - likely an overkill.

  • Non-JCUKEN layout as default for Cyrillic scripts. Probably the best in long-term, but extremely invasive (and incompatible with kbd legends).

Existing attempts at dealing with this

Edited by Kelly Roadkill
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