[Discuss] ***SPAM*** Re: Linux Keyboards & making special chars, like €

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2021-08-20 17:08-0700 Craig Miller wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I ran across this for Chromebooks, but apparently it works for all Linux
> machines. If you need to make special accented characters, chosing an
> "ïnternational" keyboard will help you.
>
> Here's a laybout with the special characters
> https://dry.sailingissues.com/us-international-keyboard-layout.html

Another alternative input method which I use to propagate UTF-8
characters fo files is to use the gucharmap application to find any
UTF-8 character you want, and then cut and paste to whatever file you
are editing.  Or if you use just a handful of these special characters
you can look them up once via gucharmap, store them in a file, and
from then on cut and paste from that file to whatever file you are editing.

This whole input procedure is obviously more clumsy than simply
choosing an appropriate special keyboard, but I like it because my
UTF-8 needs are quite extensive (e.g., for special language scripts
for PLplot examples such as <http://plplot.org/examples.php?demo=24>
and <http://plplot.org/examples.php?demo=26>) and gucharmap covers
essentially all of unicode so this input method is a general one.

Of course, regardless of input method it is essential that your
desktop is able to display the special characters so that you can
confirm whatever you input.  For Qt-based desktops such as KDE with
most/all unicode fonts installed, this is not a problem for, e.g.,
konsole.  And I assume GNOME-based desktops with a full set of fonts
installed are similarly well-equipped to display all UTF-8 characters.
But if you are using a simplified desktop without unicode display
support or don't have sufficient fonts installed, this could be an
additional issue to the input issue discussed above.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Research affiliation with the Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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