Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote: > Jan Willem Stumpel wrote: >> It seems that many Debian users (including members of this >> list) are not aware of the glorious Unix "Compose Key". You >> press Compose, and then some other characters, and magically >> a character is produced which is a kind of "graphical >> combination" of those characters. So a c-cedilla (ç) is made >> by Compose, comma, c. A German "double s" (ß) by means of >> Compose, s, s. A British pound (currency) sign (₤) by >> Compose, L, =.
> Good point Jan Willem, Florian has pointed this out before: > http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2007/04/msg01873.html > > Hugo It seems I missed that thread. But anyway it is true that the Compose key (a Unix/Linux feature, Windows doesn't have it) is a very useful tool. However, that thread did not quite answer the question posed by its OP (Manon Metten). With the Compose key, you need 3 keystrokes to make, e.g., á (Compose, ', a). If you use a true "dead keys" method, you need only 2 keystrokes (', a). The downside then is that to produce ' by itself, you need to follow the ' keypress by a space, or press Alt-'. The choice between the "dead keys" method and the "Compose" method is a matter of taste, depending on the language(s) that you normally work with. For US users who only need accented characters very rarely, the Compose method is probably the best. To enable true "dead keys" on an ordinary US keyboard you can set a "dead key variant" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf: Option "XkbVariant" "alt-intl" ("Dead keys", which already existed in European mechanical typewriters, were called "dead" because they did not advance the paper-carrying "carriage". So a following character overprinted them.) The xkb subsystem on modern versions of Linux has many more wonderful features, especially if you convert your system to utf-8 (which is easy, and already the default on fresh installations of Debian, I believe). Regards, Jan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
