2.3.1 Keyboard Support

In April 1998, the European Commission (EC) recommendations on the euro currency symbol keyboard location referred to the three main functional levels in keyboard standards:

• Level 1: press m to produce "m".

• Level 2: press Shift+m to produce "M".

• Level 3: press AltGraph+a on a UK keyboard to produce "à".

The European Commission (EC) proposed a short-term and long-term solution. The short-term solution was to place the euro currency symbol on the "E" key at Level 3. Here, the euro is generated by pressing two keys: AltGraph+e. The EC also recommended that the symbol be engraved on the keytop, which is common practice for many Level 3 characters on European keyboards (for example, German).

The short-term solution was chosen because it can be implemented easily on most national keyboards and is ergonomically sound. The key combination is also easy to remember, since "e" can be associated with "euro". Some countries (United Kingdom and Ireland), however, already use AltGraph+e to produce the "è" character. The EC has offered some alternative solutions for these countries. One alternative is to place the euro currency symbol at Level 3 on Keys "3" or "4", both of which already contain currency signs at Level 2 on most keyboards.

The long-term proposal is to introduce a new euro currency-symbol key on future keyboards. This new key would be in a common position at Level 1 for all countries.

2.3.1.1 Sun Keyboard Strategy

Sun has adopted the short-term proposal for the euro currency symbol keyboard location. The euro will be placed at Level 3 and will be generated by pressing AltGraph+e. For national keyboards with contentions (United Kingdom, Ireland, U.S. International), the euro will also be placed at level 3 but will be generated by pressing AltGraph+4. On U.S. International keyboards, the euro can also be generated by pressing AltGraph+5 or AltGraph+e. On keyboards in the United Kingdom, the euro can also be generated by pressing AltGraph+e. The following table summarizes the euro currency symbol location on Sun Type 6 keyboards.

Table 2-2 Euro currency symbol location on Sun Type 6 Keyboards

Type 6 Keyboard	EU Member	Location
U.S.	No	AltGraph+4
UNIX	No	AltGraph+e
UNIX/Logoless	No	AltGraph+e
French	Yes	AltGraph+e
Danish	Yes	AltGraph+e
Italian	Yes	AltGraph+e
Netherlands/Dutch	Yes	AltGraph+e
Norwegian	No	AltGraph+e
Portuguese	Yes	AltGraph+e
Spanish	Yes	AltGraph+e
Swedish	Yes	AltGraph+e
Finnish	Yes	AltGraph+e
Swiss/French	No	AltGraph+e
Swiss/German	No	AltGraph+e
UK	Yes	AltGraph+4
Ireland	Yes	AltGraph+4

2.3.1.2 Keyboard Input in UTF-8 Locales

Sun also provides two additional methods to input the euro:

• Unicode Hex and Unicode Octal input method

• Table lookup method

In the Unicode Hexadecimal input method, the user generates the euro currency symbol by typing the Unicode value for the symbol (U+20AC).

In the table lookup method, the user presses Compose+Control+L, which lists the possible scripts. Choose "Latin" and then the euro from the character table.