Re: [h-e-w] can NTEmacs (20 or 21) completely ignore Alt key?

[Jonathan Epstein]

At 05:33 PM 10/31/01, Jason Rumney wrote:
> Jonathan Epstein <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I use an application (Dragon NaturallySpeaking 5) which insists upon
> > entering certain characters using an old DOS trick of holding down
> > the Alt key and then pressing a numeric key combination on the
> > numeric keypad (not to be confused with the numbers at the top of a
> > regular keyboard).  For example, Alt-0034 is used for a double-quote
> > (").  Try this in WordPad ... it works.
> >
> > Is it possible to either:
> >
> > (a) get Emacs to entirely stay out of the way of the Alt key?  I
> > realize that things such as:
> >
> >    (setq w32-pass-alt-to-system t)
> >
> > are a step in the right direction, but are insufficient
> >
> > OR
> >
> > (b) write some Elisp to correctly interpret these keystroke combinations?
>
> (b) should be doable. Especially if the number of characters you need
> to enter this way is small.
>
> I am not sure exactly what your requirements are though, perhaps Cntl-Q
> already offers what you need.

Thanks for your response, Jason.  The requirements are that no additional 
keystrokes such as Cntl-Q can be issued.  Emacs must be able to detect the 
pressing and holding of the Alt-Key, the numeric keyboard's 0034 keys, and 
the release of the Alt-Key.

I don't know how to detect these events, but would appreciate input from 
anyone who does.

Clarifications: I'm running W2K service pack 1.  Unfortunately, it appears 
that the left-alt key is being using by NaturallySpeaking ... this is 
unfortunate because apparently Emacs's control of the right-alt key can be 
overridden by some Emacs runtime settings, but I see no apparent way to do 
this for the left-alt key.

Thanks for any ideas.

- Jonathan