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Add a "pass-through" input mode

Created by: bochecha

Users constantly request this, and I'm starting to understand why it is important.

We currently do some funky stuff with the shift key:

  • when a user press a, we interpret that as a key for a Cangjie code. But if the user presses shift+a then we ignore it, and so we directly input A
  • the CAPS LOCK just reverses this behaviour (CAPS LOCK then a gives A, CAPS LOCK then shift+a is taken as a key for a Cangjie code)

I think we can all agree this is a pretty useless behaviour. 😄

What I'd like to be able to do is

  1. let users type Latin letters directly (they are not interpreted as Cangjie code), uppercase as well as lowercase
  2. do that both in halfwidth and fullwidth modes

That's what other implementations of Cangjie (e.g on Microsoft Windows) usually associate to the shift key: pressing shift enables a pass-through mode, in which what you type is what you get.

However, I don't like using the shift key for this. The reason is that there are two ways to use shift:

  • you can press it once shortly to enable/disable the pass-through mode,
  • you press and hold it, while pressing another key (e.g a to get A, or 7 to get &)

The interaction between these two points is a nightmare, I see two ways to get out of this:

  1. Forbid the second usage (press and hold to get uppercase for the keys you press while holding shift) In this scenario, you press shift to switch to the pass-through mode, what you type is lowercase, and you then get uppercase by using CAPS LOCK
  2. Move the first usage to the CAPS LOCK key (press CAPS LOCK shortly to enable/disable the pass-through mode) In this scenario, shift is always used the exact same way it is used in every other languages (press and hold to get uppercase).

What I wonder about the first option is what happens to things like * or &: you're supposed to press and hold shift for these, CAPS LOCK still gives you the number on the same key. 😕

What I like about the second option (other than it doesn't have the problem just described above) is that it makes more sense conceptually: CAPS LOCK always completely switches what you're typing (whether in English, French, all other languages, or what I'm proposing here), while shift only changes what you input as long as you hold it down.

So all in all, I really prefer option 2, and I think that's what I'm going to implement.

Am I missing something? 😄