On Tue, 25 Oct 2022 08:29:05 -0700 Galen Seitz <gal...@seitzassoc.com> dijo:
>On 10/24/22 22:05, John Jason Jordan wrote: >... >> I could do the same thing for any other language that requires >> completely non-Latin characters. But I also sometimes write in >> Spanish, French and German, and for those I just use the Compose key >> rather than switch to a completely different keyboard. When I >> enabled the Compose key I assigned it to the Windows key, otherwise >> useless on Ubuntu. If I want (e.g.) an ä I hold down the Windows >> key, type a double quote, then the a, and the process gives me an ä. >> All I have to remember is that a double quote gives me an umlaut, a >> single quote gives me an acute accent, a back quote produces an >> accent grave, and an > gives an accent circumflex. There are lots >> more possibilities, and I have memorized the sequences for a few >> more, like ß, !, ¿, etc. > >I just tried it here and it works as you described. I wonder if this >works due to key rollover support. I wasn't sure sure what 'key rollover' meant, but the Wikipedia article explained it. Thanks for the link. While I have long used the Compose key, I should have mentioned that when you enable it (turned off in Xubuntu by default) you discover that it has disabled continuous entry of characters. That is, normally, if you hold a key down, it enters the character repeatedly until you release the key. That does not work for me, and it stopped working right after I enabled the Compose key. I poked around trying to find a way to get it working again, but failed. I just live without continuous character insertion. >I should have read the wikipedia article first. Entering the >diacritical first allows for the use of more than one diacritical. It >sounds like the Compose key may or may not be a modifier key. It is >system or configuration dependent. I knew that you can enter multiple diacritics, and occasionally I have done so, because we need that now and then with IPA. The problem is that in IPA the rules say that you can enter the diacritic above or below the character, and the usual practice that I see when reading academic journal articles is to put the 'ordinary' diacritic (as used in many languages) above, and the special diacritic used only by linguists below the character. Although rare, I have even seen three diacritics on a character. However, I have never figured out how the Compose key decides where to put the diacritic. I also always assumed that the Compose key works by selecting a character that has the diacritics that the user has entered, but if the font being used in the text does not contain that character, then it enters the character from another installed font that does have the required character, if available and, if not available it just enters an empty space. This is very rare for me, because my workhorse font for academic papers is Junicode, which has not only complete IPA characters, but also characters for most major languages, plus full combining diacritics. And if I need some diacritic(s) that are unavailable with the Compose key, combining diacritics rescue me. To use them I just enter them with Ctrl-Shift-u + hex code number. The only problem with combining diacritics is that they have a uniform side bearing, which creates a diacritic which is slightly off center when applied to m, w, or i, l. In a full-fledged word processor or Scribus I can manually adjust the position of the diacritic, but not here: e.g., a syllabic m comes out m̩ because Claws Mail lacks entry for sophisticated typography. Thanks again for the Wikipedia link. The article cleared up a few questions for me.
