panel applets

[Liam Proven]

On 10 March 2012 00:30, M.R. <makrober at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 03/09/2012 02:40 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
>
>> In the meantime, learn the compose key. It is actually a lot more
>> convenient.
>
> thanks for your help! OK, I'm convinced. but...:
>
>
>> It's here:
>> Shutdown/settings menu | System preferences | Keyboard | Layout
>> settings | Options | Compose key position
>
> So I set left Win key to be the "compose" key as per instructions.
>
> How do I now assign what specific utf-8 character should be generated
> when I press (and hold?) the compose key and press any particular key
> on the keyboard? For instance, I expect to press (and hold?) my
> freshly assigned compose key, and press "a" on the keyboard to
> produce æ, and compose + shift to produce Æ etc...
>
> I expect to be able to assign some specific "non-keyboard" utf-8
> characters that I often use to the specific keyboard keys. Isn't
> that how it's supposed to work? If it did, I agree it would indeed be
> an improvement over the character picker applet which required the
> use of the mouse.
>
> (I did try to duckduckgo for some explanations, but in vain ;)

OK, firstly, don't use the left Win key. I advise not using any Win
key at all  - they are a very important meta-key in operating the
Unity launcher. (For obvious reasons, Linux/Ubuntu people tend not to
like talking about the "Windows key" so they call it the "Super" key.)

Secondly, you are misunderstanding how Compose works. You use it to
compose single characters out of multiple ones.

For instance, to type æ, you hold down Compose, type a, then type e,
then let go of Compose.

So if we return to my earlier table:

a + ` = à
e + ' = é
u + " = ü
y + - = ¥
c + / = ¢
c + , = ç

To type a-grave, hold down Compose, type an "a", then type an open
single apostrophe or "backtick" - the top left alpha key on a UK
keyboard - then release Compose.

And so on down the list.

This tends to seem logical to speakers of French, German, Spanish
etc., who think of these as letters with accents: a-acute, or
u-umlaut, or c-cedilla.

It slightly annoys Scandinavians, who think of "the letter æ'" or
"typing an ø" - these glyphs are /single letters/ in Scandinavian
usage. It's a Swedish letter ö, not as the Germans would think of it,
as a letter o with an umlaut on top.

Scandinavians typing on non-Scandinavian keyboards tend to have
"standard expansions" for the Scandinavian letters. Some of these are
recognised by Compose.

å = aa, e.g. Århus is rendered "Aarhus" when no letter Å is available.
Therefore, it's compose+a+a as well.

æ = ae = compose+a+e

ö = oe but is typed compose+o+"
ø = oe but is typed compose+o+/
ä = ae but is typed compose+a+"

You have to have at least 2 letters to compose a glyph.

Most are not sequence-sensitive, I believe: Ø can be typed as
compose+/+O or compose+O+/ - it makes no difference.

A degree symbol, °, is comp+o+o.

For capital letters, just hold down shift when typing the letter
portion. Shift is significant - you need to type shift-2 for double
quotes, so a minuscule u-umlaut (ü) is comp+u+(shift+2), whereas a
capital U-umlaut is comp+(shift+u)+(shift+2): Ü.

So Æ is comp+shift-a+shift-e.

There's a list here:
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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