Keyboard mapping

The following keyboard mapping states are possible: Alphanumeric (Romaji), Katakana, and Hiragana. Each state is invoked by a keysym that acts as a locking shift key. The keysyms are Katakana, Eisu_toggle, and Hiragana shift.

When one of these keysyms is pressed, keyboard mapping enters the state associated with the key. This state is maintained until one of the other keysyms is pressed. The initial shift state is Eisu_toggle, which can be changed by customization.

When you invoke the Hiragana or Katakana state, each key is mapped to a phonetic character within the respective character set. For example, if you press q, a Hiragana character pronounced "ta" is produced during Hiragana shift state, a Katakana character pronounced "ta" is produced during Katakana shift state, or a Romaji q is produced during Eisu_toggle shift state. On Japanese IBM® keyboards, the tops of keys show all three symbols.

Also, when keyboard mapping is in Hiragana state, the input method is automatically put into a composing pre-editing mode where each Hiragana character can be converted into a Kanji character.

Some keys have two Hiragana or Katakana characters assigned. For example, the 7 key has large and small Hiragana characters both having the pronunciation "ya". These characters are not uppercase and lowercase equivalents of each other because Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana do not have uppercase and lowercase. The small characters are used to express special phonetic sounds. These characters can be distinguished by using the shift key.