AltCar + Num (special characters)

[Mitch Contla]

Derek Broughton said the following on 02/17/2007 07:58 AM:
> Michael R. Head wrote:
>
>   
>> On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 09:41 -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
>>     
>>>>>   
>>>>>           
>>>> I don't know about 6.10, but in Dapper Ctrl+Shift+<unicode> achieves a
>>>> similar result. For example, if I want an em dash, hold Ctrl+Shift and
>>>> type 2014 on the keypad.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> No, it really depends how you're configured.  That's not a default.
>>>       
>> And how do you configure that particular setup?
>>
>>     
> Don't ask me!!  My point was that it's not what I've got.  I can do
> composite characters, because I configured my right ctrl key to do it (in
> KDE, so not really appropriate here anyway), but I've never figured out how
> to do unicode characters as it's done in Windows.
>   
Funny, because I didn't change a thing relating to keyboard in my 6.06
install. Ctrl+Shift+<unicode> has worked since the beginning. Works in
gedit, gnome-terminal, openoffice, gvim, etc. I've never touched my
compose key settings.

See this Gnome User Interface Guidelines topic regarding keyboard
interaction and application shortcuts (See Unicode Entry Shortcuts under
the Guidelines subsection):
   
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html#shortcuts

    "Note that you cannot use Shift-Ctrl-A-thru-F or Shift-Ctrl-0-thru-9
    for your own purposes, as these combinations are used to enter
    unicode characters in text fields."

This caution to developers indicates to me that the method I outlined
for accessing unicode or :special characters" is the default for Gnome.
Why it wouldn't be the default for you doesn't make sense, unless you
aren't using Gnome, or this behavior was changed on your system (either
intentionally or unintentionally).

-- 
Mitch