Something similar to WinCompose?

LucidBoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Linux@lemmy.ml – 35 points –

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!

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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.

There’s a lot of options for which key to use for compose. And you can set right-alt to be that key very easily.