Reasons why I don't like emulators - or why xx-UAE is really unusable

[psxphill]

1) The keyboard. Not everybody is using a US keyboard, and even with local keyboards permitted, users are free to redefine keys.

The only way to make it work reliably is to pass keys through by position and ignore what the host operating system would map it to. But this means you can't use other input methods. There are various compromises you can make, some will work better than others for you but worse for others.

[psxphill]

but ignoring the host layout -or- ignoring the client keyboard layout is both not a solution as it means that certain keys are not even reachable.

How can keys not be reachable if every real hardware key is mapped to an emulated hardware key?
 
 Mapping real keyboard scan codes to emulation is the only reliable way to emulate a keyboard in all circumstances and all locales.

[psxphill]

Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

You can't hate emulators because your german pc keyboard is missing a key on your german amiga keyboard.

Does UAE not allow you to map keys?
 
 It's not an emulator I use often, it isn't really aimed at what I would use it for (and it appears you neither). I'm hoping for continued progress in MESS, but that is aimed at accuracy to real hardware (so hopefully one day it will get accurate chip ram bus contention etc). While WinUAE is also a little bit like amithlon, trying to make software run as fast as possible.
 
 I think a windows version of amithlon that can also run PPC software, with MESS for anything that hits the hardware is where I will end up.

[psxphill]

Nothing of that is impossible to reach, or in particular overly hard. I'm writing all this so it can hopefully be fixed. Somebody has to say. vmware on Linux pretty much works by the standards, to give one example. I would also say that my own emulator works by these minimum standards, though is probably less perfect than professional software, and it is admittedly a much simpler system that it emulates. The UAE variants I tested are not, sorry, and for the points I mentioned.

I suggest you ask for a refund on UAE if it doesn't meet your standards.

[psxphill]

Apart from building/modifying a keymap you could also just use FKey commodity to make it insert the backspace key event when alt + ß is pressed.

Yeah, the sane way to do this is map keys 1:1 as best as you can and for any that require more than one key press just modify the keymap.
 
 You can then make it so that pressing the keys in amigaos will have the same result as pressing them in your host os.

[psxphill]

Thus, "I cannot use an emulator". That's what I said in first place. It's not a matter of hating or not. It is a matter of "works for me or not". That's a difference, and I believe I pointed this out many times.

You cannot use an emulator because you've got perceived problems that you hate the only sane solution to. You can whinge about the solution not being clear to you, but nobody cares as it will work for you if you could get over yourself.

There are problems with emulators that have less than ideal solutions and some problems are unsolvable, nobody cares if you complain about those either.
 
 Sure it would be nice if the 68040 mmu worked, but most people get by without having it enabled. Complaining about it here is not going to make a bit of difference.
 
 Your lists of solutions isn't going to inspire anybody, it just makes you look bad.

[psxphill]

I cannot write an email if @ is at a confusing location, and I cannot write a program if \ is at a confusing location.

That is the case out of the box, but both uae and amigaos allows them to be configured so they would be in the correct place for you.

This report doesn't require an action.

Why did you request a specific solution to the problem then?

If instead you had asked if anybody had a solution to the problem you were facing and you didn't just shout down everybody who gave you solutions then you might have found this thread to be more amicable. What you suggested is over-engineered and is likely to be more of a maintenance issue moving forward.

Someone probably should come up with a pre-packaged set of files for each country for working in UAE this way, it would appear that nobody is that bothered or it would have been done already.

[psxphill]

Once again. I DID NOT REQUEST A SOLUTION. I'm describing my experience. How often do I need to say?

 
 You clearly did.
 
 

Solutions: Yes, this is hard. Two keyboard layouts are involved. The PC keyboard, and the Amiga keyboard. The solution I have found in "atari++" is: If the key maps to a regular printable character, perform the mapping by position. If the user presses the "Z" key, emulate the key that is at the same position as on the Amiga keyboard. This way, local keymaps work. If the key is a function key, i.e. "shift" or "caps lock", perform the mapping by function, not by position. Caps and Control are always the same position on a PC keyboard, no matter which national layout is used, so allow the user to change the position of these keys. Kes that are not on the PC keyboard should be emulated in an obvious matter. Backslash: AltGr+? for a German keyboard, hence "map by function". Simply *not* mapping this key is not helping.

[psxphill]

Oh, stop the bull. I'm offering my solution for the same problem, I'm not requesting that this problem is solved in xx-UAE.

And you say I should stop the bull?
 You should be a politician.