Special characters / Umlauts

[hmc]

Hi guys,


I'd like to enable German Umlaut entry on the Pandora.


(The same question also relates to any other language-specific special characters probably).


What software could be used for that purpose?


I could imagine "ksyboard shortcuts" for the Umlauts, such as Ctrl-A for Ä etc., but given the low amount of modifier keys on the Pandora, I'd prefer a one-key solution, such as pressing the "A" key three times triggers the last three entered "a"s to be deleted and replaced by an "ä".


Entry of "Ä" using "Aaa" or "AAA", entry of ß using "sss" etc.


Likewise, entry of the copyright sign (c in a circle) using "ccc" etc.


Any ideas?


Thanks!


Daniel

 

[F_Slim]

Here: http://pandorawiki.org/Keyboard it's called "compose mode". This means for example

<shift><enter><fn> s a

will give you an ä (you combine " and a). Same way you get ö, ü and ß.


Don't know about other special charakters though ...

 

[hmc]

Thanks! I didn't know that yet.


Although it's nice to have this capability, this is not suitable for fast writing, so I am still looking for such a three-keypresses solution. Under Windows on the Viliv N5 UMPC I have implemented that using AutoHotKey as a so-called "hotstring". Maybe something like this exists also for Linux? A tool which hooks somewhere between keyboard input and application and replaces strings with different strings?


Also, in the Terminal the "compose mode" solution does not work. It produces a question mark instead of the Umlaut. I often work on the Terminal, so I'd need a solution, which works there, too.


Thanks,


Daniel

 

[F_Slim]

Well, if you scroll down on that wiki page to "Other notes", there are two links to a "keyboard layout changer" and "keyboard remapping". Maybe that will help?


You can also try and search the german forum ( http://forum.gp2x.de/ ), I remember there was a thread about this, too ...

 

[hmc]

All these options show only ways to set key combinations for Umlauts. Using the method to put Umlauts onto currency symbol keys is nice, but still not optimal for fast typing. For fast typing it would be better not to have to be interrupted in typing by needing to press more keys at once, but pressing one key three times consecutively is faster, so I'd still prefer a solution using string replacement.


In single applications, which support string replacement, such as NoteCase Pro, this can be achieved on a per-application basis, but a system-wide solution would be nicer.


Daniel

 

[F_Slim]

Since my name and surname have é, ü and ß I agree that easily accessible umlauts and the like are a must. But a system wide aaa=ä would cause havoc!!


Something like Ctrl+(<fn> s a) might be nice (keeping Ctrl pressed while typing <fn> s a), or a similar combination ... since I still wait for my Pandora I don't know what would be easy to use. I could also imagine giving <fn> ability to the the ABXY buttons. (Just leave it to the user to assign any character to the combination <fn>+A-button, <fn>+B-button, <fn>+X-button or <fn>+Y-button?)

 

[hmc]

what havoc so you think of? well, I see, maybe if the user needs to press the "a" key repeatedly for a specific reason, e.g. in a game?


Maybe this could be mode-dependent. Switch this capability on and off using a special key (combination), which you use when starting / stopping writing longer text.


OTOH the Fn-ABXY button idea is not so bad! DOes anyone know how the .pndXmodmap entries for that method should look like?


Or is there a tool, which shows the strings, which need to be added to the xmodmap file, dependent on the keys the user presses, so that we can find out by ourselves?

 

[Neelix]

Perhaps something like this could work?


http://lifehacker.com/5310976/autokey-does-customized-text-replacement-for-linux


http://code.google.com/p/autokey/


- Neelix

 

[hmc]

thanks, good pointers! I will look into AutoKey and IronAHK when I have the time. (Large backlog of things to look at, to test and to port...)


Daniel

 

[Dimacus]

I did some searching and you could create your own IME, like this guy: http://www.scim-im.org/development/contribute/how_to_create_a_new_ime_on_linux_in_about_15_minutes_with_scim_and_m17n


It's probably not the simplest way, but if the pandora has support for SCIM it would be an elegant solution.


It's systems like these that the Japanese and Chinese use for input.

 

[dreamer]

In linux the use of the compose-key to implement diacritical signs is rather standard. I rather like it on a regular keyboard, but I can imagine that on the pandora's keyboard it may not be very comfortable, especially if you use it a lot.

 

[GuSec]

I'm bumping this thread to ask a similar question I couldn't find an answer to by searching these forums. I can input characters from the Swedish alphabet (å, ä and ö) but they do not show in the web browsers (firefox, midori) and not in the terminal ("??"). They work and show fine in the file manager though. Why is this, and how do I add support for these special characters? I've also encountered other undisplayable characters, like japanese and korean, which looks terrible in a web browser. Is there a simple solution?

 

[slaeshjag]

you need to set your locale to UTF-8 iirc. I have no idea why it isn't UTF-8 by default, anything else is just legacy crap from the 70's, 80's and 90's.


Put this in your ~/.bashrc

export LANG=en_US.utf8

Save (and reboot, just to be sure.) Now åäö etc. should work fine.