kasbah / akt

APL Key Translation for use with GNU APL (by David B. Lamkins, formerly available at TieDyedDevil/akt)

APL Keyboard Translator

The akt program generates keyboard input suitable for GNU APL and for editing APL code using a Unicode-capable text editor (e.g. vim).

Compile akt using the command:

$ make akt

Invoke akt with a command and its arguments (if any) like this:

$ akt apl

When you invoke apl this way, you will be able to type APL glyphs using the Alt key. The keyboard mapping is illustrated in a file included with akt.

akt's input must be a terminal. Your system's locale must use UTF-8 encoding.

akt runs the specified command attached to a pty. akt is the master and the specified command is the slave. The slave's terminal size automatically adjusts to conform to the master's terminal size.

Use the -z option to suppress the action of the suspend character.

akt depends upon your terminal emulator sending the two-character sequence ESC <char> when you hold the Alt key and type <char>. The ability for a terminal to do so may be a configurable option, often named something like "Alt sends meta".

Note that some terminal emulators use the Alt key to access the terminal program's menus. This conflicts with akt's use of the Alt key as a shift for APL characters. If your terminal does this, there's probably a configuration option to disable using Alt for menu access.