[gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

I noticed that the terminal program I've used for years (aterm)
recently stopped working with the "compose" key (for generating
accented or "foreign" characters, for example).

The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
work in aterm or urxvt.

I'm particularly surprised that it works in rxvt (which has
been abandoned for years), but not in in rxvt-unicode (built
with iso14755 and unicode3 options enabled) which is actively
developed and intended to support internationalization.

Does anybody else have problems with the compose key and aterm
or urxvt?

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Where's th' DAFFY
                                  at               DUCK EXHIBIT??
                               visi.com            

Re: [gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> I noticed that the terminal program I've used for years (aterm)
> recently stopped working with the "compose" key (for generating
> accented or "foreign" characters, for example).
>
> The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
> xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
> work in aterm or urxvt.
>
> I'm particularly surprised that it works in rxvt (which has
> been abandoned for years), but not in in rxvt-unicode (built
> with iso14755 and unicode3 options enabled) which is actively
> developed and intended to support internationalization.
>
> Does anybody else have problems with the compose key and aterm
> or urxvt?

I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I had never
even heard of it. Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about
setting it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key

Thanks,
Paul

Re: [gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag 17 Februar 2009, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> > I noticed that the terminal program I've used for years (aterm)
> > recently stopped working with the "compose" key (for generating
> > accented or "foreign" characters, for example).
> >
> > The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
> > xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
> > work in aterm or urxvt.
> >
> > I'm particularly surprised that it works in rxvt (which has
> > been abandoned for years), but not in in rxvt-unicode (built
> > with iso14755 and unicode3 options enabled) which is actively
> > developed and intended to support internationalization.
> >
> > Does anybody else have problems with the compose key and aterm
> > or urxvt?
>
> I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I had never
> even heard of it. Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about
> setting it up.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
>
> Thanks,
> Paul

of course you have. On your keyboard it is labeled as 'alt gr'

[gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>
>> The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
>> xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
>> work in aterm or urxvt.

[...]

> I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I
> had never even heard of it.

So how do you enter accented or non-latin characters or
ligatures or the like?

> Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about setting
> it up.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key

Um, since my compose key works fine with most applications, one
might assume that I've already got it set up.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Is it NOUVELLE
                                  at               CUISINE when 3 olives are
                               visi.com            struggling with a scallop
                                                   in a plate of SAUCE MORNAY?

Re: [gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Tuesday 17 February 2009 21:53:38 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I had never
> > even heard of it. Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about
> > setting it up.
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Paul
>
> of course you have. On your keyboard it is labeled as 'alt gr'

What is this 'alt gr' key of which you speak?

I have four keyboards in this house and not one of them has such a key.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag 17 Februar 2009, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 February 2009 21:53:38 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
> > > I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I had never
> > > even heard of it. Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about
> > > setting it up.
> > >
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Paul
> >
> > of course you have. On your keyboard it is labeled as 'alt gr'
>
> What is this 'alt gr' key of which you speak?
>
> I have four keyboards in this house and not one of them has such a key.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

Re: [gentoo-user] Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Dienstag 17 Februar 2009, Paul Hartman wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>> > I noticed that the terminal program I've used for years (aterm)
>> > recently stopped working with the "compose" key (for generating
>> > accented or "foreign" characters, for example).
>> >
>> > The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
>> > xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
>> > work in aterm or urxvt.
>> >
>> > I'm particularly surprised that it works in rxvt (which has
>> > been abandoned for years), but not in in rxvt-unicode (built
>> > with iso14755 and unicode3 options enabled) which is actively
>> > developed and intended to support internationalization.
>> >
>> > Does anybody else have problems with the compose key and aterm
>> > or urxvt?
>>
>> I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I had never
>> even heard of it. Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about
>> setting it up.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Paul
>
> of course you have. On your keyboard it is labeled as 'alt gr'

I don't have AltGr on any keyboard I've ever seen, other than in
pictures. US English keyboards don't have any of this "foreign"
language support. :) We just have two Alt keys, which both behave
identically (they do have different scancodes, though). Here's what it
looks like: http://www.cooltoyzph.com/image/US_Keyboard_layout.jpg

There is a "US-International" layout that makes the right-alt behave
like Alt Gr, and allowing easier entry for non-English (mostly
Spanish) characters. I don't know if US-International keyboards
actually exists or if it's just a virtual layout. However, even then,
it does not behave like the "Compose" key as described by the
Wikipedia article, which makes it sound like a dead key. It's just a
modifier, like Shift. It doesn't indicate any combining of following
keystrokes. Maybe it does act like that for other layouts. It's all
news to me, as I've never used any non-US keyboard. :)

Thanks,
Paul

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
>>> xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
>>> work in aterm or urxvt.
>
> [...]
>
>> I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I
>> had never even heard of it.
>
> So how do you enter accented or non-latin characters or
> ligatures or the like?

I don't. The standard US English PC keyboard has nothing but A-Z,
numbers, a few symbols and standard punctuation. Typically, if someone
has an accented character in their name or address it is simply
entered in without the accent. Have to use "character map" type of
programs or alternate keyboard layouts to really enter any "special"
characters. Or the old alt-keypad method from DOS, I don't know if
that even works in Linux.

>> Wikipedia has some info about how you might go about setting
>> it up.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
>
> Um, since my compose key works fine with most applications, one
> might assume that I've already got it set up.

A quick googling says:

It looks like the deadkeys problem was a known bug and should have
been fixed in 1.0.1-r2 (there is aterm-1.0.1-deadkeys.patch in the
portage tree). What version did you try?

The rxvt-unicode website has a FAQ about the compose key not working:
http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.pod#My_Compose_Multi_key_key_is_no_longe

I can't test it since I lack the necessary key.

Paul

[gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968, Size: 2295 bytes --]

On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a "US-International" layout that makes the right-alt
> behave like Alt Gr, and allowing easier entry for non-English
> (mostly Spanish) characters. I don't know if US-International
> keyboards actually exists or if it's just a virtual layout.
> However, even then, it does not behave like the "Compose" key
> as described by the Wikipedia article, which makes it sound
> like a dead key.

A dead key and a compose key are related, but not quite the
same thing.  A dead key is one that when struck doesn't
generate a "letter" but instead modifies the "letter" that's
generated by the next keystroke. Unlike a modifier like
shift/alt/control, a dead key or a compose key is struck and
released and then the next key is struck.  Some non-English
keyboards have deadicated deadkeys for commonly used accents.
Dead keys are more-or-less the equivalent of a typewriter key
that imprints a glyph onto the paper but doesn't move the
platen (or the type-ball, if you want to think like a
selectric).

What a compose key does is temporarily make the _next_ key
struck act like a dead key.

To enter ô, you strike compose, ^, o.  Hitting compose makes
the ^ key temporarily into a dead key.

> It's just a modifier, like Shift. It doesn't indicate any
> combining of following keystrokes. Maybe it does act like that
> for other layouts. It's all news to me, as I've never used any
> non-US keyboard. :)

Me neither.  I've set up right-ALT as my compose key.  [How do
you enter accented or non-latin characters without a compose
key?]

The problem is that it stopped working recently in aterm, and I
can't figure out why.  In aterm, if I hit compose ^ o, I just
get "^o".  In urxvt, compose sequences are ignored completely.

Furthermore, both aterm and urxvt correctly _display_ non-ascii
characters that were entered in other applications using
compose sequences.  You can even paste them into aterm and
urxvt. You just can't enter them from the keyboard.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! over in west
                                  at               Philadelphia a puppy is
                               visi.com            vomiting ...

[gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The compose key still works fine in xjed, emacs, rxvt, mrxvt,
>>>> xterm, and dozens of GTK and Qt based apps. But, it doesn't
>>>> work in aterm or urxvt.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> I've never owned a keyboard with a "Compose" key, actually I
>>> had never even heard of it.
>>
>> So how do you enter accented or non-latin characters or
>> ligatures or the like?
>
> I don't. The standard US English PC keyboard has nothing but A-Z,
> numbers, a few symbols and standard punctuation.

I know.  I'm here in the US and have normal USian keyboards.

> Typically, if someone has an accented character in their name
> or address it is simply entered in without the accent.

That just seems a bit parochial. :)

> Have to use "character map" type of programs or alternate
> keyboard layouts to really enter any "special" characters. Or
> the old alt-keypad method from DOS, I don't know if that even
> works in Linux.


> A quick googling says:
>
> It looks like the deadkeys problem was a known bug and should have
> been fixed in 1.0.1-r2 (there is aterm-1.0.1-deadkeys.patch in the
> portage tree). What version did you try?

Great! Not sure why I didn't find that when I was Googling
earlier. It looks like I'm running 1.0.1-r1.  I'll give -r2 a
try.

> The rxvt-unicode website has a FAQ about the compose key not working:
> http://pod.tst.eu/http://cvs.schmorp.de/rxvt-unicode/doc/rxvt.7.pod#My_Compose_Multi_key_key_is_no_longe

Yea, I found that -- it wasn't really all that helpful.

Note to FAQ editors: Saying "X is set wrong" isn't all that
helpful if you don't bother to say what the right setting is...

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! WHO sees a BEACH BUNNY
                                  at               sobbing on a SHAG RUG?!
                               visi.com            

[gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-02-17, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:

>> It looks like the deadkeys problem was a known bug and should have
>> been fixed in 1.0.1-r2 (there is aterm-1.0.1-deadkeys.patch in the
>> portage tree). What version did you try?
>
> Great! Not sure why I didn't find that when I was Googling
> earlier.

After looking more closely at the patch, I _had_ found that bug
and patch when Googling, but it simply didn't occur to me that
a fix that had been out for 3 years would be masked by the ~x86
keyword.  Development of aterm is a bit on the slow side.
IIRC, it's now officially abandoned in favor of urxvt.  I'll
probably continue to use it since compose works in aterm and
not in urxvt.

Upgrading to 1.0.1-r2 does fix the problem.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! Okay ... I'm going
                                  at               home to write the "I HATE
                               visi.com            RUBIK's CUBE HANDBOOK FOR
                                                   DEAD CAT LOVERS" ...

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> What a compose key does is temporarily make the _next_ key
> struck act like a dead key.
>
> To enter ô, you strike compose, ^, o.  Hitting compose makes
> the ^ key temporarily into a dead key.

It seems like a sensible way of doing things. I can't believe I had
never heard of it before!

> Me neither.  I've set up right-ALT as my compose key.  [How do
> you enter accented or non-latin characters without a compose
> key?]

I've used the US-International layout in KDE (or in Windows XP), where
AltGr acts as a modifier, and most characters needed for European
languages can be pressed with an easy AltGr-[key], but the compose key
seems like it would be easier to remember what does what (assuming you
don't have a keyboard with the international layout printed on the
keys). For example, AltGr-q makes ä which doesn't make a whole lot of
sense unless you've memorized it. KDE and WinXP allow you to easily
toggle between layouts, so if I'm in need of some "foreign" characters
(doing business in the UK and needing to type £ constantly, for
example), I'll just toggle the US-Intl layout off and on. Here is the
cheat sheet:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/KB_US-International.svg/800px-KB_US-International.svg.png

Thanks,
Paul

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
> On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> wrote:
>>> So how do you enter accented or non-latin characters or
>>> ligatures or the like?
>>
>> I don't. The standard US English PC keyboard has nothing but A-Z,
>> numbers, a few symbols and standard punctuation.
>
> I know.  I'm here in the US and have normal USian keyboards.

Sorry, I assumed you were elsewhere (I was picturing an actual
"Compose" key on your keyboard). It's hard to tell! There is a good
chance that when I assume someone is from a certain part of the world
on here, I'm wrong.

>> Typically, if someone has an accented character in their name
>> or address it is simply entered in without the accent.
>
> That just seems a bit parochial. :)

Of course /I/ make sure to get people's names correct, but I was
speaking more in general. The store clerk at a cash register entering
your name in probably isn't going to jump through hoops to get
accented characters. Again, I was assuming you were an outsider. :)

Thanks,
Paul

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

On Dienstag 17 Februar 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
> > There is a "US-International" layout that makes the right-alt
> > behave like Alt Gr, and allowing easier entry for non-English
> > (mostly Spanish) characters. I don't know if US-International
> > keyboards actually exists or if it's just a virtual layout.
> > However, even then, it does not behave like the "Compose" key
> > as described by the Wikipedia article, which makes it sound
> > like a dead key.
>
> A dead key and a compose key are related, but not quite the
> same thing.  A dead key is one that when struck doesn't
> generate a "letter" but instead modifies the "letter" that's
> generated by the next keystroke. Unlike a modifier like
> shift/alt/control, a dead key or a compose key is struck and
> released and then the next key is struck.  Some non-English
> keyboards have deadicated deadkeys for commonly used accents.
> Dead keys are more-or-less the equivalent of a typewriter key
> that imprints a glyph onto the paper but doesn't move the
> platen (or the type-ball, if you want to think like a
> selectric).
>
> What a compose key does is temporarily make the _next_ key
> struck act like a dead key.
>
> To enter ô, you strike compose, ^, o.  Hitting compose makes
> the ^ key temporarily into a dead key.

nope, just ^ and o no other key.

at least in kde.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Francisco Ares]

That's a legacy behavior got from old typewriter machines in which the
accents did not move the carriage as normal characters did, just
printing the accent (that had to be high enough for upper case
letters) and waiting for the accented letter to do the move.

As far as I know, in KDE you may install an international layout
toggle, so different behaviors - and even quite different lay-outs -
may co-exist.

Francisco

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Dienstag 17 Februar 2009, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2009-02-17, Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > There is a "US-International" layout that makes the right-alt
>> > behave like Alt Gr, and allowing easier entry for non-English
>> > (mostly Spanish) characters. I don't know if US-International
>> > keyboards actually exists or if it's just a virtual layout.
>> > However, even then, it does not behave like the "Compose" key
>> > as described by the Wikipedia article, which makes it sound
>> > like a dead key.
>>
>> A dead key and a compose key are related, but not quite the
>> same thing.  A dead key is one that when struck doesn't
>> generate a "letter" but instead modifies the "letter" that's
>> generated by the next keystroke. Unlike a modifier like
>> shift/alt/control, a dead key or a compose key is struck and
>> released and then the next key is struck.  Some non-English
>> keyboards have deadicated deadkeys for commonly used accents.
>> Dead keys are more-or-less the equivalent of a typewriter key
>> that imprints a glyph onto the paper but doesn't move the
>> platen (or the type-ball, if you want to think like a
>> selectric).
>>
>> What a compose key does is temporarily make the _next_ key
>> struck act like a dead key.
>>
>> To enter ô, you strike compose, ^, o.  Hitting compose makes
>> the ^ key temporarily into a dead key.
>
> nope, just ^ and o no other key.
>
> at least in kde.
>
>



-- 
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then
you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and
I have one idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have
two ideas." - George Bernard Shaw

[gentoo-user] Re: Terminals that work with "compose" key?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-02-18, Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:

>> A dead key and a compose key are related, but not quite the
>> same thing.  A dead key is one that when struck doesn't
>> generate a "letter" but instead modifies the "letter" that's
>> generated by the next keystroke. Unlike a modifier like
>> shift/alt/control, a dead key or a compose key is struck and
>> released and then the next key is struck.  Some non-English
>> keyboards have dedicated deadkeys for commonly used accents.
>> Dead keys are more-or-less the equivalent of a typewriter key
>> that imprints a glyph onto the paper but doesn't move the
>> platen (or the type-ball, if you want to think like a
>> selectric).
>>
>> What a compose key does is temporarily make the _next_ key
>> struck act like a dead key.
>>
>> To enter ô, you strike compose, ^, o.  Hitting compose makes
>> the ^ key temporarily into a dead key.
>
> nope, just ^ and o no other key.

That's if your keyboard layout has dead keys.  Mine doesn't.

I'm talking about using a compose key (sorry if I wasn't clear).

If you're using a compose key instead of dead keys, you do it
they way I said: compose, ^, o.

If I type ^ and o, then I get ^o.

I'm set up to use a compose key. I don't have any dead keys.

Like I said, some non-English keyboard layouts have dead keys
(yours apparently does).  US-English layout doesn't.  That's
why we configure a compose key.

-- 
Grant