[SOLVED] Accented characters in a minimal desktop?

agi93 · 04-10-2010, 05:37 PM

Hello Slackware Community!

I am running Slackware64 v13.0 with XMonad as my window manager and dzen2 as my status bar. Sometimes I do my Spanish homework on this computer, and I would like to know the best way to get accented characters and other symbols. Normally, in desktop environments or proprietary OSs, there is a window I can open to select certain special characters. I don't have any of that on this system, and I need to know if there is a simple, minimal program that displays special characters like this or if there is another way to use them easily. I would prefer something light and without many dependencies (just because I prefer simpler software), but I'm open to other solutions if something like this is not available.

How do other Slackers do this?

in_texas_dallas · 04-10-2010, 06:12 PM

Agi> You may consider using language that doesn't insult other people's choices. I can understand you might have reasons for running a "minimal desktop", but that doesn't mean that everybody else is using either a "bloated desktop environment" or a "proprietary OS".

ANY distribution can have ANY program installed. There is not ONE particular thing that makes a DE bloated or not.

What you need to do is go to your package manager and search for "special characters". Your particular distribution will have a special repository with all the required

In KDE I do this: apt-cache search char|grep special

I get this result: kcharselect

harryhaller · 04-10-2010, 06:16 PM

You don't need a program - just the compose key on your keyboard.
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html

Now the question should be: How do I modify the keyboard to get a compose key?

The easiest way is in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:

Code:

Section "InputDevice" 
        Identifier      "Keyboard0" 
        Driver          "kbd" 
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104" 
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us" 
        Option          "XkbOptions"    "compose:rwin" 
EndSection

Or you can change your $HOME/.Xmodmap file:

Code:

keycode 116 = Multi_key

Further info to keyboard reconfiguration here:
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...ring_keyboards

BTW: On my keyboard (pc105), the keycode is 117. Depends on your keyboard.

sombragris · 04-10-2010, 06:17 PM

I would suggest you use the US-International layout. For setting up that layout on an X environment, type:

Code:

setxkbmap -layout us_intl

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboar...-International

astrogeek · 04-10-2010, 07:19 PM

As I understand your question, you are looking for a utility to allow you to copy and paste these characters, or to get their encodings - not a keyboard map as suggested by others.

If that is the case and you have any recent Slackware installed then just run

Code:

# charmap

That is a simple utility that will show many sets of special characters and their encodings, and allow you to copy and paste them (or whole sentences) into your documents.

Hope this helps.

in_texas_dallas · 04-11-2010, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by astrogeek

As I understand your question, you are looking for a utility to allow you to copy and paste these characters, or to get their encodings - not a keyboard map as suggested by others.

If that is the case and you have any recent Slackware installed then just run

Code:

# charmap

That is a simple utility that will show many sets of special characters and their encodings, and allow you to copy and paste them (or whole sentences) into your documents.

Hope this helps.

Astrogeek> Thanks, that was what I was trying to suggest, finding a program that would do that... I don't use slackware, so I don't know the programs for that distro.

Here it is on my distro:

Code:

in_texas_dallas@kubuntu-pc:~$ apt-cache search char|grep special
kcharselect - special character utility for KDE 4

camphor · 04-13-2010, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harryhaller

You don't need a program - just the compose key on your keyboard.
http://www.hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html

Now the question should be: How do I modify the keyboard to get a compose key?

The easiest way is in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file:

Code:

Section "InputDevice" 
        Identifier      "Keyboard0" 
        Driver          "kbd" 
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104" 
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us" 
        Option          "XkbOptions"    "compose:rwin" 
EndSection

Or you can change your $HOME/.Xmodmap file:

Code:

keycode 116 = Multi_key

Further info to keyboard reconfiguration here:
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...ring_keyboards

BTW: On my keyboard (pc105), the keycode is 117. Depends on your keyboard.

I cóuld ńȯt lįve withoųt mẏ múlti kéy!

agi93 · 04-13-2010, 06:41 PM

charmap works perfectly! This is exactly what I wanted!

Thank you for telling me about the compose key, too. That should help a lot when I'm typing something with a lot of foreign characters.