On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 20:42 +0100, Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote: > On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:26:26 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 01:01:53PM +1100, James Steward wrote: > > > I have searched for some time now for a method by which I can enter > > > characters from (say) ISO 8859-1 in X applications. In essence > > > I would like to insert a "DEGREE SIGN" into an email for example. > > > Anyone using codepage 437 on windows or ISO 8859-1 in Linux should > > > see a ° ? (I hope you see it too ;-) I believe. > > > > > > Now I realise I can achieve this using KCharSelect, but is there a > > > keyboard only way? Similar to Alt-176 for example? > > > > I have a similar question -- how to enter arbitrary unicode > > characters. My system is configured (to the extent I've been able to > > do it) UTF-8 only, but I still have only the usual characters on my > > keyboard, and don't know, for example, how to enter hiragana. > > Running Sarge here, and I see that if you press Alt-<any_key> or > Alt-Shift-<any_key> in X then you get a vast range of special > characters -- in xterm, at least. Don't know why this is the case. > The degree sign ° results from pressing Alt-0 (Alt-zero). > > But my preferred way to type special characters is to use an arbitrary > key as the so-called Compose key. After pressing this key, you enter two > other characters, e.g. e and ' , and the result is é. > > Usually, one of the Windows keys is used for this purpose. First, you > have to find the key code of the key you want to use, which can be done > by running xev. For a Windows key, the keycode is usually 115, 116 or > 117. > > Then as user run this command: > > xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = Multi_key" > > (If the keycode you just found differs from 115, use it instead.) > > Now it should work. > Press the key followed bij e' or 'e which results in é . > Do not keep this 'compose key' pressed, but release it before entering > e' or 'e . > > The degree sign you mentioned results from pressing the compose key > followed by one of these four combinations: 0* *0 0^ ^0 > > The pairs of characters to be used can be found in > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/<your_encoding>/Compose > for example: > /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/iso8859-1/Compose > > > Once it works, you can put the xmodmap command mentioned above into some > startup file, e.g. ~/.xinitrc. > Another method is to create the file ~/.Xmodmap and put this line into > it: > > keycode 115 = Multi_key > > My findings with Sarge are that using ~/.Xmodmap works as long as you > log in through gdm. I'm logging in through the console using startx, > which made it stop working for some reason. If that is the case, you can > still put one of these two commands into a startup file like ~/.xinitrc: > > xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = Multi_key" > > xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
That was probably the best explanations I've read. I had read about and tried using xmodmap, but never found where the actual mappings were (the "Compose" file). Now I have it working fine. Thanks. Using the Alt or Shift-Alt key combo doesn't work for me - but then again this Xandros distro was based on Woody I believe. Sarge has probably changed a little. Regards, James. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
