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geekhack Community => Ergonomics => Topic started by: wilderjds on Thu, 17 November 2016, 20:17:34

Title: Position of the compose key
Post by: wilderjds on Thu, 17 November 2016, 20:17:34

I'd be interested to know what you use for the position of the compose key on a standard ansi layout keyboard. I have mine on the right alt, which acts as a dual role key.

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Title: Re: Position of the compose key
Post by: Findecanor on Fri, 18 November 2016, 03:33:33

Huh? You use the compose key?

Title: Re: Position of the compose key
Post by: vvp on Fri, 18 November 2016, 05:40:46

Compose key is great for typing all the crazy characters like √, ∑,  ½, ¾, α, β, ĉ, ß, ý, ¥, ∆, etc.
… easily and intuitively from a single keyboard layout.
I have Compose key below the X key (but the keyboard is an ergodox like almost qerty piece of hardware).

Title: Re: Position of the compose key
Post by: wilderjds on Fri, 18 November 2016, 05:56:44

Not to mention if you occasionally write in languages that require accented letters such as French, Italian and Spanish...

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Title: Re: Position of the compose key
Post by: daerid on Sun, 11 December 2016, 19:13:43

Ignorant American here:

WTF is the "compose" key?

Title: Re: Position of the compose key
Post by: vvp on Mon, 12 December 2016, 04:24:17

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

And here is an example of a compose file which defines what shortcuts lead to which character:
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libX11/plain/nls/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.pre