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
