[tlug] FYI - Typing macrons, etc., in X apps

["Michael(tm) Smith" <smith@example.com>]

So a while back I posted a message asking if anybody knew how to
type words with macrons, like "rōmaji", within X-Windows
applications.  After exploring a bit, I managed to figure out
how. I'm sending this message for benefit of any others on this
list that might also be trying to figure it out.

The main problem I was bumbling around trying to get past was what
to use as a "Compose" key (or I guess it's sometimes called
"Multi_Key") on my machine, which is a MacBook with a Japanese
keyboard. So it lacks a right-Ctrl key, right-Alt, right-Win (or
even right-Command) and pretty much every other key that the
various how-to guides I found say are normally by default as the
Compose key.

So... in my KDE environment, I found in Control Center/Keyboard
Layout/Xkb options -- scrolling down through the long list of
options there -- the "Compose Key Position" option. I checked the
"Caps Lock is Compose" sub-option there.

Once I got past that, everything just worked. Now I can type ō by
hitting Caps_Lock followed by _o (underscore o) -- along with
being able to easily type all kinds of other stuff like Håkon, ¼,
©, Ça va?, µ, Hans Ørnes, and Mötley Crüe within any X app, using
compose sequences of the Compose (Caps Lock) key followed by two
or more other keys.

For figuring out what the compose sequences for typing particular
characters are, I browsed through the following:

  /usr/share/keymaps/include/
  /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose

I have my environment set to en_US.UTF-8, so I think the
/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose file is what is actually
being used (though don't know for sure because the compose
sequences among different keymaps and locales overlap).

Anyway, it's one of those things that turns out to be really
simple once you know how to do it... Main thing is just knowing
what your environment is set up to use as the default Compose key
(or knowing where/how to configure it to use a particular key as
the Compose key).

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/
http://sideshowbarker.net/

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