Hello,

On 2024-01-29 15:29, Franco Martelli wrote:

On 26/01/24 at 20:50, David Wright wrote:

I'll give a shout-out for Hack,¹ which I can't fault for use in
xterms. Comparing xterm -geometry 80x25+0+0 -fa hack -fs 16
with xterm -geometry 80x25+0+0 -fa inconsolata -fs 18
(to make the sizes roughly the same), I find the inconsolata
stroke width on the basic Roman alphabet is a little spindly.

Other criticisms are that the stroke widths (and even the size)
later in the table (eg 0x256–1312) are thicker or larger, and
many single-width characters are slightly oversize and get
truncated at the top & right (eg Ŵ at 0x372, Lj 456). Mixing
fractions is ugly, too: ½ ⅓ ⅔ ¼ ¾ ⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞. The ‘’ quotes >> are pretty, though.

Those symbols are very nice, which tool have you used to insert them?
I'm using Thunderbird for my emails but I've to enable "Compose
message in HTML" to have a small subset of symbols, for me isn't
enough. I'm using KDE desktop.

Thanks in advance, best regards.

You shouldn't need HTML email to have fractions, they are part of
Unicode.
You don't need any specific tool to insert them either.

But you do need to enable/define Compose key, if it's not enabled in
your system already

You get those by Compose key + 1 + 2 should produce ½. Compose key + 1 +
3 gives you ⅓, Compose key + 2 + 5 outputs ⅖… and so on, works for ⅚, ⅞…
as well. Basically for whatever fraction that is part of Unicode.

And since it's Unicode, it also works outside of email/web/HTML.
Plaintext file included.

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On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 10:02:20PM +0100, Franco Martelli wrote:

I read that for custom sequence I've to create a ~/.XCompose file, but where can I find the character to map i.e. Greek letters: "α" "β" "γ" ?

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, admittedly. What I did was find
a web page that had these characters on it, and then copy/pasted them.

In "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file the ALPHA char is
defined as:

<dead_greek> <a> : "α" U03B1 # GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA

What stands for <dead_greek> ?

That's a new one to me. Presumably there must exist some keyboard,
somewhere, which has such a key.

If that's the route you want to take, and if you don't have this key,
then you'll use xmodmap to remap something to become dead_greek. One of
the Alt or Super keys, for example.

<https://askubuntu.com/questions/787113/compose-dead-greek-with-compose-key> seems to have some partial answers you can use as a starting point.

I simply went with this instead:

<Multi_key> <g> <a> : "α"
<Multi_key> <g> <b> : "β"
<Multi_key> <g> <g> : "γ"
<Multi_key> <g> <d> : "δ"

and so on.

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On Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:02:20 +0100
Franco Martelli <martellif67@gmail.com> wrote:

I read that for custom sequence I've to create a ~/.XCompose file,
but where can I find the character to map i.e. Greek letters: "α" "β"
"γ" ?

Try the gucharmap package. You look a character up by name, and copy it
into place. E.g. crocodile, 🐊.

In "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file the ALPHA char is defined as:

<dead_greek> <a> : "α" U03B1 # GREEK SMALL
LETTER ALPHA

What stands for <dead_greek> ?

Look at the Wikipedia entry for dead key.

Could I have an example of custom
~/.XCompose file for this letter, please?

https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose

--
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

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so i defined my compose key
in "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file i see a definition <Multi_key> <U22a5> <U22a4>
how do i type this

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On Tue, Jan 30, 2024 at 11:00:47AM -0800, Van Snyder wrote:

I configured several different Compose keys, for example Right-Alt, one
at a time, using the KDE settings -> input devices -> keyboard ->
advanced widget.

If I use them in XTerm, for example Compose-'-e to try to produce �, it
locks up.

I don't use any desktop environment, just fvwm. Compose ' e and
Compose e ' both work for me in xterm.

I don't have multiple Compose keys, though, nor do I understand how KDE's method differs from xmodmap (which is what I use).

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On Tue, 30 Jan 2024, Franco Martelli wrote:

On 30/01/24 at 01:14, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

so i defined my compose key
in "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file i see a definition
<Multi_key> <U22a5> <U22a4>
how do i type this

I dunno if it's possible to type it using the COMPOSE key, however as workaround you can install "gucharmap" if your desktop is GTK based or "kcharselect" if your desktop is KDE, then search the character by name (I-BEAM) then copy into the clipboard, finally create your own custom ~/.XCompose and define your key sequence to associate i.e. <Multi_key>
<i> <b> : "⌶" as explained in the Debian wiki:

https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose

thanks
that helps
in "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file i see a definition <Multi_key> <U22a5> <U22a4> : "⌶"U2336 # ⊥ ⊤ APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL I-BEAM i can directly enter the symbol above using the U2336 value without a compose key
ctrl + shift + u and type 2336 and enter

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On Wed 31 Jan 2024 at 02:46:22 (+0000), fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

On Tue, 30 Jan 2024, Franco Martelli wrote:

On 30/01/24 at 01:14, fxkl47BF@protonmail.com wrote:

so i defined my compose key
in "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file i see a definition
<Multi_key> <U22a5> <U22a4>
how do i type this

I dunno if it's possible to type it using the COMPOSE key, however as workaround you can install "gucharmap" if your desktop is GTK based or "kcharselect" if your desktop is KDE, then search the character by name (I-BEAM) then copy into the clipboard, finally create your own custom ~/.XCompose and define your key sequence to associate i.e. <Multi_key>
<i> <b> : "⌶" as explained in the Debian wiki:

https://wiki.debian.org/XCompose

thanks
that helps
in "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose" file i see a definition <Multi_key> <U22a5> <U22a4> : "⌶"U2336 # ⊥ ⊤ APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL I-BEAM
i can directly enter the symbol above using the U2336 value without a compose key
ctrl + shift + u and type 2336 and enter

I wasn't sure from you previous post why you wanted to type this
character. Is it something you often use, or was it just a random
example of an Compose definition involving codepoints rather than
more familiar letters and symbols?

I would assume that someone who was going to use a Compose sequence
to type the I-beam would already have their keyboard set up to make
APL symbols available with a shift level. AIUI they would likely
use the layout similar to the IBM 2741. On that keyboard, you could
therefore type Compose and shifted B and N; see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:APL-keybd2.svg

For typing raw codepoints, your method will work in graphical
applications like FireFox and, presumably, Desktop environments
generally. In emacs, where I compose my emails, the sequence
is a little different:
Esc x i n s Tab c Tab Return 2 3 3 6 Return
which stands for Meta-X insert-char (using Tab completion) followed
by the codepoint. Or one can type:
Ctrl-X 8 Return 2 3 3 6 Return
or even:
Ctrl-X 8 Return A P L Tab I - Tab
which uses Tab completion to type APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL I-BEAM,
the Sunday name of the symbol.

People who use vi may have different keystorkes. Horses for courses.

Cheers,
David.

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