VERSION: askeymap v0.3
AUTHOR: cosmo (Kasim Terzic) cosmo@operamail.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------

DESCRIPTION:
------------ 
askeymap is a program intended for AfterStep window manager users, 
but it should be usable with any WM capable of swallowing Window
Maker/AfterStep applets. 

The program acts as a frontend to Xmodmap, which is available with
just about any X Window System installation, and lets you change
keyboards on the fly. I wrote it because I couldn't find another
program which would do it in a satisfactory way under AfterStep. 

It comes with a bunch of icons and a lot of modmap files for 
Xmodmap, but alternative icons and map files can be provided.

 

INSTALLING:
-----------
This program uses autoconf/automake so a simple:
 
./configure
make
su -c "make install"
 
should do the trick. If you cannot become root, use the --prefix
option while running configure. Type ./configure --help for more
details.
 
Binaries will default to /usr/local/bin, icons and xmodmap files
to /usr/local/share/askeymap.
 


RUNNING: 
--------
Afterstep users: Add the following line to your 
	~/GNUstep/Library/Afterstep/wharf file:
 
	*Wharf askeymap - Swallow "askeymap" askeymap &

WindowMaker users: Start askeymap with the -w option, it will
	be automatically swallowed by the WM dock.
 
Once the program is running, you should see an icon displaying
the current keyboard map. Clicking it will cycle through to the
next loaded keyboard, wrapping over to the first at the end.



CONFIGURATION:
-------------- 
There is a file in your home directory called .askeymaprc. All
the options can be set from there. The file itself is quite
simple to understand, so have a look at it. Lines beginning with
the '#' symbol are comments, and there are three keywords:

  XMODMAPDIR = <path to xmodmap file directory>
     -- sets the path to xmodmap.xx files, where xx is the 
        country code. Defaults to /usr/local/share/askeymap/xmodmap.
 
  ICONDIR = <path to icon directory>
     -- sets the path to icon directory, with iconXX.xpm files,
        where XX is the two-letter country code. Default icons
        are located in /usr/local/share/askeymap/icons. 
        alternative icon themes are encouraged, please contact me!
  
  KEYBOARD XX
     -- loads keyboard map XX, where XX is the two-letter country
        code. An arbitrary number of these statements can be 
        included (must be more than one, though), the order in 
        which they appear will be the order in which the keyboards
        are cycled through.

 

EXAMPLE .askeymaprc FILE:
-------------------------
  
#  classic configuration file.
#  First set the directory for xmodmap files.

XMODMAPDIR = /usr/local/share/askeymaprc/xmodmap
 
# Next, set the directory where icons can be located
 
ICONDIR = /usr/local/share/askeymaprc/icons
 
# Finally, list all the keyboards we want to use. Must be
# at least 2, in the order we want them to appear in
 
KEYBOARD uk
KEYBOARD de
KEYBOARD fr
KEYBOARD es



PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS:
-------------------------

At this point, only two-letter country codes are supported. Something
like xmodmap.ch-fr, for example, cannot be loaded at the moment.
 
Also, in a wild attempt to finally get things working, I manually set
LDADD to /usr/X11R6/lib. This might refuse to compile somewhere along
the line if you have X libraries somewhere else. Edit 
askeymap/Makefile.am and adjust LDADD manually if this happens.



LICENCE:
--------

Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, v2.
Please read the file COPYING for details.

