To be or not to be (ordinary keys ~ ^ `)
 

Hello,
Since some months there has been a change in the behavior of the combination
AltGr+4 of the spanish keyboard. See, bug #477197
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=477197

I am glad that change will be reverted. But I would like to make a change in
the configuration of the keyboard, that I do not know how to do. In Spanish
there are no chars like â, è (I think it is the first time I written the è
char since I was in Italy 15 years ago). But I ussually work with LaTeX, and
therefore I use the chars ^ and ` much more often. It would be nice to be
able to write those chars just by simply typing shift+` or ` not like now
that I have to type shift+`+space or `+space. I do not want make a global,
since that is the ordinary behavior of the windows keyboard, even Microsoft
systems behave like that.

My question is the following, which is the file I have to modify to change
that behavior. Where there are simple instructions to modify it?

Thank you,
Luis.
--
http://antares.sip.ucm.es/~luis
In a world without walls, who needs windows(R)?


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To be or not to be (ordinary keys ~ ^ `)
 

El lun, 26-05-2008 a las 10:03 +0200, Luis Fernando Llana Diaz escribió:
> Hello,
> Since some months there has been a change in the behavior of the combination
> AltGr+4 of the spanish keyboard. See, bug #477197
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=477197
>
> I am glad that change will be reverted. But I would like to make a change in
> the configuration of the keyboard, that I do not know how to do. In Spanish
> there are no chars like â, è (I think it is the first time I written the è
> char since I was in Italy 15 years ago). But I ussually work with LaTeX, and
> therefore I use the chars ^ and ` much more often. It would be nice to be
> able to write those chars just by simply typing shift+` or ` not like now
> that I have to type shift+`+space or `+space. I do not want make a global,
> since that is the ordinary behavior of the windows keyboard, even Microsoft
> systems behave like that.
>
> My question is the following, which is the file I have to modify to change
> that behavior. Where there are simple instructions to modify it?

For spanish keyboard, it's /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/es. To do what you ask,
for example, you have to modify the line:
key <AD11> { [ dead_grave, dead_circumflex ],
as follows:
key <AD11> { [ grave, dead_circumflex ],


That would make the change system-wide. If you only want your user to
see this behaviour, you can use xmodmap.

If you want shift+` to print the actual ` character, use:
xmodmap -e 'keycode 34 = dead_grave grave'

You can also make ` (it's called grave) print the grave and shift+`
"print" dead grave (which is the current behaviour) with:
xmodmap -e 'keycode 34 = grave dead_grave'

You can always put the '...' part of this commands in ~/.xmodmaprc and
most DEs will load it for you on login.

Read 'man xmodmap' for more info.


--
Gabriel Parrondo
GNU/Linux User #404138
GnuPG Public Key ID: BED7BF43
JID: gabrielp@xmpp.us

"The only difference between theory and practice is that, in theory,
there's no difference between theory and practice."


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To be or not to be (ordinary keys ~ ^ `)
 

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 06:34:13 -0300, Gabriel Parrondo wrote:
> El lun, 26-05-2008 a las 10:03 +0200, Luis Fernando Llana Diaz escribió:
> > Hello,
> > Since some months there has been a change in the behavior of the combination
> > AltGr+4 of the spanish keyboard. See, bug #477197
> > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=477197
> >
> > I am glad that change will be reverted. But I would like to make a change in
> > the configuration of the keyboard, that I do not know how to do. In Spanish
> > there are no chars like â, è (I think it is the first time I written the è
> > char since I was in Italy 15 years ago). But I ussually work with LaTeX, and
> > therefore I use the chars ^ and ` much more often. It would be nice to be
> > able to write those chars just by simply typing shift+` or ` not like now
> > that I have to type shift+`+space or `+space. I do not want make a global,
> > since that is the ordinary behavior of the windows keyboard, even Microsoft
> > systems behave like that.
> >
> > My question is the following, which is the file I have to modify to change
> > that behavior. Where there are simple instructions to modify it?
>
> For spanish keyboard, it's /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/es. To do what you ask,
> for example, you have to modify the line:
> key <AD11> { [ dead_grave, dead_circumflex ],
> as follows:
> key <AD11> { [ grave, dead_circumflex ],
>
>
> That would make the change system-wide. If you only want your user to
> see this behaviour, you can use xmodmap.
>
> If you want shift+` to print the actual ` character, use:
> xmodmap -e 'keycode 34 = dead_grave grave'
>
> You can also make ` (it's called grave) print the grave and shift+`
> "print" dead grave (which is the current behaviour) with:
> xmodmap -e 'keycode 34 = grave dead_grave'

I would use something like

xmodmap -e "keycode 34 = grave asciicircum bracketleft degree bracketleft degree"

or the opening square bracket with AltGr + ` will not work anymore.

The "dead tilde" problem of AltGr + 4 can be fixed with:

xmodmap -e "keycode 13 = 4 dollar asciitilde dollar asciitilde dollar"

> You can always put the '...' part of this commands in ~/.xmodmaprc and
> most DEs will load it for you on login.

If that does not work, check out the section CUSTOMIZING THE STARTUP
PROCEDURE in the manpage of "Xsession". There is an example showing how
to add both system-wide and user-specific Xmodmaps.

> Read 'man xmodmap' for more info.

--
Regards, | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer
Florian |


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To be or not to be (ordinary keys ~ ^ `)
 

On 26/05/2008, Luis Fernando Llana Diaz <luis@ramonvazquez.net> wrote:
> But I ussually work with LaTeX, and therefore I use the chars ^ and `
> much more often.

I realise that this is probably not the best solution, but I notice
that so many coding languages are built for usage with a US keyboard
layout, that I often code with the US keyboard layout and switch to
Spanish (international sort, the one with the symbols needed for
Catalan as well) whenever I need to write prose in Spanish or French
(not Catalan, unfortunately). Since my coding is also in English in
order to make it easier to share (aren't you disappointed when code is
commented in a language you don't know?), it all works out with the US
layout.

This seems to be even more true when using Emacs, where many of the
keychords seem to be optimised for the US keyboard layout. I have
honestly tried writing C++ with a Spanish layout, but most of the
necessary symbols are in very uncomfortable keys. When writing LaTeX,
I also use the English layout and type 'acc^e~nts l`ik"e th'is.
It seems like a small price to pay to type one extra key before typing
all accents. Every command in LaTeX begins with a backslash anyways,
and I have yet to see a Spanish layout that has a backslash in a
comfortable position for frequent usage. Indeed, most Hispanophone
Windows users I see that need to use a backslash memorise its ASCII
code and type it with Alt+$ASCII_NUMBER combinations.

So my own advice is to get used to the US layout for LaTeX and coding.
Whether that's feasible or not, I'm not sure, but if you touch-type, a
different keyboard configuration seems to be no more difficult than
learning a different language. It seems to involve a similar kind of
switch in your brain.

- Jordi G. H.


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To be or not to be (ordinary keys ~ ^ `)
 

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 2:14 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso
<jordigh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 26/05/2008, Luis Fernando Llana Diaz <luis@ramonvazquez.net> wrote:
>> But I ussually work with LaTeX, and therefore I use the chars ^ and `
>> much more often.
>
> I realise that this is probably not the best solution, but I notice
> that so many coding languages are built for usage with a US keyboard
> layout, that I often code with the US keyboard layout and switch to
> Spanish (international sort, the one with the symbols needed for
> Catalan as well) whenever I need to write prose in Spanish or French
> (not Catalan, unfortunately). Since my coding is also in English in
> order to make it easier to share (aren't you disappointed when code is
> commented in a language you don't know?), it all works out with the US
> layout.
>
> This seems to be even more true when using Emacs, where many of the
> keychords seem to be optimised for the US keyboard layout. I have
> honestly tried writing C++ with a Spanish layout, but most of the
> necessary symbols are in very uncomfortable keys. When writing LaTeX,
> I also use the English layout and type 'acc^e~nts l`ik"e th'is.
> It seems like a small price to pay to type one extra key before typing
> all accents. Every command in LaTeX begins with a backslash anyways,
> and I have yet to see a Spanish layout that has a backslash in a
> comfortable position for frequent usage. Indeed, most Hispanophone
> Windows users I see that need to use a backslash memorise its ASCII
> code and type it with Alt+$ASCII_NUMBER combinations.
>
> So my own advice is to get used to the US layout for LaTeX and coding.
> Whether that's feasible or not, I'm not sure, but if you touch-type, a
> different keyboard configuration seems to be no more difficult than
> learning a different language. It seems to involve a similar kind of
> switch in your brain.

Venturing even more in the off-topic direction, I'd recomend the
keyboard listed as "US (international)", or sometimes as "Brazilian
(US International)", or something like that. It's a US keyboard, but
with dead keys. All accented letters in Portuguese, Spanish, French,
Italian, and possibly other languages can be typed. For example, '
(apostrophe) followed by a gives á.


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