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Author Topic: The Compose Key and UTF8 char  (Read 3336 times)

dbannon

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The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« on: February 20, 2021, 01:24:10 am »

Moved from elsewhere.


How does that (compose key) work?
I have a Linux Mint 18 in a VM with Dutch locale.
I "compose" my diacritics via "dead keys": I press " and then A and I get Ä for example.
IIRC then this works OK in GTK2.
I have a standard US-intl keyboard (laptop though).
Any idea which key I should use to compose a key in the way you do it?

Bart

Bart, Its not something I use frequently, more for scientific characters that accented ones.  But one of my end users opened the bug report and I felt obliged to follow up.  I usually use the "hold down shift-ctrl and type 'u' then hex code." model (ie micro is µ   uB5, degree is uB0, delta is Δ u394, . But apparently thats regarded as less desirable these days.

The compose key model is reported to be  easier to remember (I don't find it so) and faster for hi speed typists (not me).

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ComposeKey describes how to config the keys, by default on my U18.04 there was no compose key. It was a case of Preferences->Keyboard->Layouts->Options  and setting the preferred key stroke to trigger it. Apparently the LeftShift - LeftWin combination is the most popular. You press that combination and release it. Then, for example for ü, (part of my wife's name), you press 'u', release and ", release.

the Å is the result of Compose Key  'A' and then '*'.

Other modifiers include ~, ", ^ and so on.

The strange thing with LCL's GTK2 is that model works fine in, for example, a TEdit but fails in a TMemo ?? Å

Davo



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My Project - https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng and my github - https://github.com/davidbannon

Martin_fr

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Re: The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2021, 04:41:51 am »
Well my Ubuntu 20 (installed with no special options selected) does not have "Preferences"
It has settings. But there is no Keyboard section....


However I have "gnome-tweaks" and that allows to set a compose key.

dbannon

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Re: The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2021, 05:11:17 am »
Wow, this obsession Gnome has with minimization ?

Pretty soon they will enforce a totally blank screen and a one key keyboard !

By the way, try using the Fedora Gnome, there you will find you cannot even drop a file on your desktop, too much clutter.....

Davo



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Martin_fr

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Re: The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2021, 01:05:36 pm »
Off topic:

Well, my point is, I did not choose Gnome. I downloaded the Ubuntu install media, and installed. That's it.
The only choices I made where time zone, locale, username and password.

Yet despite whatever I got seems to be the default, the ubuntu page (link given earlier in this thread) describes something else....
« Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 01:07:17 pm by Martin_fr »

dbannon

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Re: The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2021, 12:11:20 am »
Yes Martin, not clear.  The link I posted was the first relevant (to me) one I found.  It is quite out of date, but contained all that I needed. But I use U18.04 Mate, already a few years old and, importantly, a desktop that strives to allow the user to do what they want to do, rather than what the Gnome Developers decree we should be doing.

This is a much more recent document and it agrees with you, gnome-tweak is required (if using Gnome of course).

https://www.maketecheasier.com/quickly-type-special-characters-linux/

On XFCe its Settings->Keyboard->Layout
On Mate Preferences-Keyboard->Layout->Options
On KDE Settings-KeyBoard-Layouts->[Authenticate?]->Hot-Keys.

Sigh .....

As an aside, Mate with the "Plank" dock is a very usable system, and fairly light weight. Join us, do not be afraid ........

Davo
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My Project - https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng and my github - https://github.com/davidbannon

Martin_fr

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Re: The Compose Key and UTF8 char
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2021, 02:33:24 am »
Well thanks for the links.
The main issue was that the info on "how to" was not applicable for everyone.

As for as what Desktop I use for myself: As long as I can open a terminal => fine. So I never bothered to change it.

 

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