Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:43:36 +0100 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Antonio Olivares <olivares14031@gmail.com> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Character shortcuts Message-ID: <20110312224336.ade79718.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimEHuVq_menbHAQkw09%2Bf7bAHMR=Xn-Y6gnzuFi@mail.gmail.com> References: <AANLkTimEHuVq_menbHAQkw09%2Bf7bAHMR=Xn-Y6gnzuFi@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:07:59 -0600, Antonio Olivares <olivares14031@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear FreeBSD experts, > > There has been something that I find hard to do, I would like to find > a CTRL + KEY combination, or ALT + KEY combination to input special > characters like (ñ) [ALT + 164 or ALT + 0241 in Mr. Gates OS]. > > http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards.asp > > accents other symbols like copyright, euro, etc. I would like to do > the same(have a special key combination) to get the characters in > FreeBSD too, but googling have not found something that works. I even > tried to run a litte program in the shell to generate the characters > to use for cutting + pasting to no avial. Depending on your keyboard and language settings, many characters can be generated by Alt+Letter. There is also a COMPOSE key on some keyboards - and those that don't have it can be told to do so by xmodmap. Using the COMPOSE approach, you combine a letter with an accent or any other symbol, and if there is a matching result in your character set (or font), it will be displayed. Here are some examples: Compose a a -> å (svedish a-circle) Compose s s -> ß (german Eszett ligature) Compose U " -> Ü (german U Umlaut, capital) Compose L / -> Ł (polish L-stroke, capital) Compose a , -> ą (polish a-comma) Compose o / -> ø (danish o-stroke) Compose k k -> ĸ (greek kappa) Compose n ' -> ń (n with accent grave) And of course: Compose n ~ -> ñ. Depending on how characters like `, ´, ^ or ~ are handled (single character immediately output, or combination character that waits for the next letter to automatically construct a new one), Compose may be needed or not. On the default german keyboard setting, 'e gives é, ~n gives ñ and ^a gives â immediately without using Compose. My ~/.xmodmaprc contains (along with other lines): add mod4 = Multi_key keycode 117 = Multi_key You can find out the keycodes using the "xev" program. Your keyboard settings maybe sets other characters than can be created with Alt+letter or AltGr+letter (the german keyboard's right Alt key is labeled AltGr, or Alt Graph on my Sun keyboard), e. g. ¬¹²³¼½¬{[]}\ @ł€¶ŧ←↓→øþþ¨ æßðđŋħjĸł˝^ «»¢“”nµ·, and with Shift ¬¡⅛£¤⅜⅝⅞™±°¿¿˛ ΩŁ€®Ŧ¥↑ıØÞ˚ ƧЪŊĦJ&Ł˝ˇ ¦<>©‘’Nº×÷. So instead of memorizing arbitrary numbers as in MICROS~1 land, you can see a relation between the letter and the key you need to press in order to generate it. You can also rearrange them if you feel a need for that. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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