Re: [gentoo-user] GBP character in KDE

[Mick]

On Sunday 09 Mar 2014 09:00:23 Matti Nykyri wrote:
> On Mar 8, 2014, at 20:44, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
> > On Saturday 08 Mar 2014 18:10:21 Mick wrote:
> >> On Saturday 08 Mar 2014 17:42:07 Pavel Volkov wrote:
> >>> On Saturday 08 March 2014 15:50:27 Mick wrote:
> >>>> I can't understand why a PC that uses the KDE desktop always sticks an
> >>>>
> >>>> accented capital "A" in front of the pound sign.  It looks like this:
> >>>> £
> >>>
> >>> I don't have this problem in KDE (though I'm not using UK layout to
> >>> type it). I use the additional X.Org layout called "typo" and type the
> >>> pound sign with AltGr+F.
> >>>
> >>> What tool do you use to switch keyboard layouts and what are those
> >>> layouts?
> >>
> >> This machine only has UK qwerty keyboard and UK locale.  I don't switch
> >> into any other layouts.
> >>
> >> I've just changed the default country in the KDE locale GUI from UK to
> >> 'No Country' and will restart the desktop as soon as I can kick a Luser
> >> off it, to see if it works.
> >
> > The user logged out of KDE and back in and the darn thing still shows up.
> >  :-/
> >
> > Any ideas what might be causing this?  There is no problem with typing
> > the US dollar character key (Shift+4), but there is when pressing the
> > GBP character (Shift+3).
> >
> > This is what xev shows when pressing and releasing Shift plus the key:
> >
> > ======================================================
> > KeyPress event, serial 37, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,
> >
> >   root 0x15b, subw 0x4a00002, time 125124784, (30,32), root:(3052,475),
> >   state 0x10, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
> >   XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
> >   XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
> >   XFilterEvent returns: False
> >
> > KeyPress event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,
> >
> >   root 0x15b, subw 0x4a00002, time 125128642, (30,32), root:(3052,475),
> >   state 0x11, keycode 12 (keysym 0xa3, sterling), same_screen YES,
> >   XLookupString gives 2 bytes: (c2 a3) "£"
> >   XmbLookupString gives 2 bytes: (c2 a3) "£"
> >   XFilterEvent returns: False
> >
> > KeyRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,
> >
> >   root 0x15b, subw 0x4a00002, time 125128772, (30,32), root:(3052,475),
> >   state 0x11, keycode 12 (keysym 0xa3, sterling), same_screen YES,
> >   XLookupString gives 2 bytes: (c2 a3) "£"
> >   XFilterEvent returns: False
> >
> > KeyRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x4a00001,
> >
> >   root 0x15b, subw 0x4a00002, time 125128977, (30,32), root:(3052,475),
> >   state 0x11, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
> >   XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
> >   XFilterEvent returns: False
> >
> > ======================================================
>
> When you press £-symbol on your keyboard and are using a unicode keymap
> U+00A3 unicode keypoint is created. When that is encoded to UTF-8 a 2-byte
> string is created: 0x2CA3. Now when this string is displayed the software
> displaying the string needs to know the encoding of the string. If it is
> interpreted as UTF-8 string you will see: £. If it is interpreted as
> ISO-8859-1 or CP1252 these both will produce: £.
>
> So what this means is that you have an in correct unicode configuration. In
> the console I have correct unicode setup. How ever when run command
> unicode_stop I get £ and after I run unicode_start I will get £ as I
> should.
>
> When computer boots always starts with us layout and ascii map. It is upto
> your configuration to switch to your preferred layout and charmap.
>
> For X set your layout in xorg.conf.d in 10-evdev.conf (XkbLayout). Then
> test that X has the correct keyboard layout: sudo Xorg :0 -ac -terminate &
> (sleep 4 && DISPLAY=:0.0 xterm)
>
> If that works you should have the right layout in kde. Deleting kde config
> will bring you the correct layout.
>
> For the console set unicode aware font in conf.d/consolefont and keymap in
> keymaps. And in rc.conf set unicode to yes.

Thank you Matti!  I had some deprecated syntax in /etc/locale.gen and clearly 
my UTF8 local was not being generated.  As soon as I fixed that and rebooted I 
was able to type £ without  preceding it.

This is a rather old machine and I have not spent much time configuring it 
over the years.  It still has an old xorg.conf file which I will need to 
modify when I get a minute.

Thanks again for your help.  :-)

-- 
Regards,
Mick