Question about Compose key

[Stewart C. Russell]

On 13-05-12 12:17 AM, Sadiq Saif wrote:
> 
> I believe he is talking about the AltGr key:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key

Nope, not the Alt Gr key, though I do have my Alt Gr key on this laptop
set up as Compose.

The Compose key is a dead key which combines the keys you press after it
into a symbol or character not normally present on the keyboard. Some
examples:

Compose +
1st key	2nd key	3rd key	Result	
=======	=======	=======	======
 '	 a		á	Letter a acute
 `	 e		è	Letter e grave
 "	 o		ö	Letter o umlaut
 s	 s		ß	Letter German sharp s
 /	 c		¢	Currency cent symbol
 =	 c		€	Currency euro symbol
 "	 <		“	Punctuation left double quote
 "	 >		”	Punctuation right double quote
 -	 -	 -	—	Punctuation em-dash
 .	 .		…	Punctuation ellipsis
 -	 :		÷	Mathematics division
 o	 o		°	Symbol degree
 -	 >		→	Symbol right arrow

There are many more. Many, many more:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libX11/plain/nls/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.pre

The advantage that using Compose has over the US International layout +
Alt Gr is that the key combinations used with Compose are somewhat more
logical. Compose does require a bunch more typing, though.

Finding the settings for the Compose key can be more involved than it
should be. For instance, Ubuntu hides it under System Settings… →
Keyboard → Layout Settings → Options…

cheers,
 Stewart
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