On 29/01/2024 22:32, Greg Wooledge wrote:
On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 03:54:44PM +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 03:29:57PM +0100, Franco Martelli wrote:
Those symbols are very nice, which tool have you used to insert them?
Easy. I configured my CAPSLOCK key (which is useless IMO) to be
my X compose key. So entering COMPOSE-4-5 does ⅘, and COMPOSE-<-3
does ♥. You can even define your own compose seqs, like I did with
♀ (COMPOSE-o-+) and others.
This is documented at <https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose> by the way.
In addition to what this page say, system-wide Compose key may be set
among other keyboard configuration options
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
that adds to the XKBOPTIONS variable inside /etc/default/keyboard
something like "compose:ralt". Desktop environments may save keyboard
properties during first login and may ignore later adjustment of system
configuration.
I have heard that xmodmap is obsolete and replaced by setxkbmap and
xkbcomp. I am unsure concerning Wayland sessions. In addition, setxkbmap
called directly would not work in GNOME, it is necessary to configure
keyboard layouts and programmable switching between them requires D-Bus
calls.
I use Compose key (and user-specific keyboard layout settings are
disabled in KDE), however there are some alternatives.
- Gtk and Qt application may allow to input characters by Unicode code
points: [Ctrl+Shift+u] and hex code.
- KDE has emoji selector [Win+.]
A few years ago I spent some time experimenting if I can use GNOME with
keyboard layout switched directly by xkb. It is intentionally broken and
some xkb features (e.g. layout switching by CapsLock/Shift+CapsLock).
Hard-coded machinery causes e.g. temporary focus lost.
In addition, Input Method layer is mandatory, it is ibus by default. It
may be another way to input various characters. There are e.g. emoji and
LaTeX input methods. The latter allows to type characters using LaTeX
commands. For me it was no go because I have not found a way to force US
keyboard layout when such input method is selected. They are useless for
non-lating layouts, so such configuration is rather inconvenient.
There was another feature: [Ctrl+Shift+e] emoji picker, likely provided
by ibus (or maybe by GNOME).
gsettings get org.freedesktop.ibus.panel.emoji unicode-hotkey
gsettings get org.freedesktop.ibus.panel.emoji hotkey
(related gsettings commands are "describe" and "list-recursively").
