| 1 |
The Gentoo Weekly newsletter (06-12-04) has the answer! |
| 2 |
|
| 3 |
================== |
| 4 |
8. Tips and Tricks |
| 5 |
================== |
| 6 |
|
| 7 |
Revival of the Compose Key a.k.a. Multi_Key |
| 8 |
------------------------------------------- |
| 9 |
|
| 10 |
Many users are on a keyboard layout which does not allow to type other |
| 11 |
characters than those printed on the keys. There are some workarounds with |
| 12 |
so-called "deadkeys" so that you can type characters with accents, but |
| 13 |
that does not enable you to type all characters in your locale. |
| 14 |
|
| 15 |
On many Unix-machines you can find a "Compose Key" on the attached |
| 16 |
keyboard. With that special key you can "compose" the desired character. |
| 17 |
For instance, typing the sequence <compose> <"> <a> will result in the |
| 18 |
Umlaut ä. Or take <compose> </> <o> for a danish ø. With X it is no |
| 19 |
problem to declare any key as the Compose Key, or "Multi_Key" as it is |
| 20 |
called in the internal routines. Just remember that a keyboard sends only |
| 21 |
keycodes, and that it is unimportant which keycode represents a given |
| 22 |
character or special key. |
| 23 |
|
| 24 |
To enable the Compose Key you have to alter your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. There |
| 25 |
are other ways, like using xmodmap, but the global configuration with the |
| 26 |
xorg.conf ensures that the Compose Key will be available to all users. I |
| 27 |
recommend the right "Windows Key" (just one of the two on your keyboard |
| 28 |
enabled should be enough): |
| 29 |
|
| 30 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 31 |
| Code Listing 8.1: | |
| 32 |
|Enable the Compose Key in the | |
| 33 |
xorg.conf------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| 34 |
------- |
| 35 |
| | |
| 36 |
|# Your section in xorg.conf about the keyboard looks similar to this: | |
| 37 |
|Section "InputDevice" | |
| 38 |
| Identifier "Keyboard0" | |
| 39 |
| Driver "kbd" | |
| 40 |
| Option "XkbModel" "pc104" | |
| 41 |
| Option "XkbLayout" "us" | |
| 42 |
| Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin" | |
| 43 |
|EndSection | |
| 44 |
| | |
| 45 |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 46 |
|
| 47 |
After you restart X, you should be able to type the characters in the |
| 48 |
example above. A complete list of available Compose Key characters with |
| 49 |
their description can be found in the file |
| 50 |
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/<your_character_enocding>/Compose. |
| 51 |
|
| 52 |
------------------------------------------------------ |
| 53 |
|
| 54 |
Extremely cool, as I just checked the file for iso8859-15, and yes, as |
| 55 |
soon as I set a Compose Key, I will finally be able to type the Euro |
| 56 |
symbol on my US keyboard using |
| 57 |
|
| 58 |
<Multi_key> <e> <equal> : "\244" EuroSign |
| 59 |
|
| 60 |
because there is already a setting for the symbol, I just didn't know |
| 61 |
what it was. |
| 62 |
|
| 63 |
Woo hoo! gucharmap can finally get off my menu, and I can type like a |
| 64 |
normal person. |
| 65 |
|
| 66 |
A HUGE shout-out to the Newsletter editors and contributors for this |
| 67 |
fabulous tip which should help a lot more people than just me. |
| 68 |
|
| 69 |
Just a heads-up for those of you who don't get the NL; especially since |
| 70 |
I know there's at least one other person on this list who doesn't know |
| 71 |
how to type useful Dutch characters under Linux-- but I couldn't find |
| 72 |
who it was via a search of my mail, so thought I'd tell everybody ;-) . |
| 73 |
|
| 74 |
Holly |
| 75 |
|
| 76 |
|
| 77 |
-- |
| 78 |
gentoo-user@g.o mailing list |
Archives