Question asked on OOo mailing list - probably better asked here ??
William Case
billlinux at rogers.com
Tue Feb 27 18:34:56 UTC 2007
Thanks Alan;
I have and use the compose button. On my keyboard it is the Windows
Menu button.
On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 19:13 +0000, Alan wrote:
> The X server does keyboard mapping of keys and you can use X to map keys.
> If you have an international keyboard set up then X ships with compose
> functionality which for the subset of symbols it does is usually easier
> to learn.
>
> Basically hit alt (left alt to US folks) and shift together, then let go
> of both, now type two keys in sequence that compose the resulting symbol.
>
> The compose pairs are designed to be logical thus
>
> ss = ß
> a' = á
> e^ = ê
> e= = €
> c, = ç
>
> and so on
>
> Alan
I am not advocating getting rid of the compose facility. I would still
use it for less frequently used accented characters; the same applies to
using <Ctrl><Shft>U,unicode#. However, some of the glyphs that I use
regularly are not part of any compose table I know of and as far as
accent characters are concerned -- they seem to break the flow of the
thought while I am typing.
If, for example, I regularly write articles about the card game bridge I
want to easily get the glyphs ♠ or ♣ or ♥ or ♦ without having to use a
cheat sheet -- like I have just done. Similarly, I am an English
Canadian who learnt to touch type on an American Qwerty board years ago.
This means I don't want to use or need to use a 'Canadian' keyboard but
does mean I probably use some French accented characters more often than
other nationalities. Just to keep the ideas flowing I would like to set
a few shortcut keys that are meaningful to me to produce those
characters. Maybe I want to use regularly use a few Hebrew, or Arabic
or Chinese characters.
Actually, whatever reason I may decide to use a shortcut key is
irrelevant. It's a facility I would like to see available.
It seems to me what I am asking for is not a criticism of what currently
exists, but merely a feature that would make inputing more meaningful
and quicker for people who as a matter of routine use characters/glyphs
that are beyond the usual ASCII 256.
--
Regards Bill
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