Hi all,
I've switched to Linux only recently, and am very sad that I had to abandon WinCompose. For those who don't know, it is a taskbar application which allows you to toggle "compose-mode" with your R-Alt key and then combine multiple keystrokes to create special characters in an intuitive way. For example, Alt -> U -> "-" becomes Ū. Is there an alternative to this for Linux? I'm on Zorin OS 17.1 Core, specifically. To clarify, I'm not looking for a symbol table add-on. I'm looking for something that I can utilise with only my keyboard.
Thanks in advance!
You're in luck. As far as i recall wincompose is inspired by Xorg's Compose feature (https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose?tab=readme-ov-file#features). Depending on your installation you can toggle it via some settings, or by running:
setxkbmap -option compose:raltI always find the book useful for this stuff: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg/Keyboard_configuration#Configuring_compose_key
Thank you so much for the answer and the link to "The Book"! The Linux world is so amazing and I'm happy to learn more.
Yes this exists on Linux too, it's called the compose key. It's usually not assigned by default, look in the keyboard settings. I use the Pause key for it.
It works a bit different from WinCompose, you press the key you assigned then two other keys that you want to combine. So instead of using RAlt with the keys you'd press Pause and then each key, one at a time. So Pause then U then " and you'd get Ü.
I'm not sure if the combinations are identical but it would make sense if they were.
That's cool. So, this Compose key isn't a thing on Windows? Thank you for the answer.
PS when you see things prefixed with "win" it usually means its the windows counterpart to an already existing Linux tool ^^
Check your keyboard settings, should be something in there for enable/define compose key.