getting the stupid compose key to work again (gnome-flashback-metacity, upgrade to 16.04)

[Adam Funk]

On 2016-10-04, Adam Funk wrote:

> On 2016-09-19, Tony Arnold wrote:
>
>> Adam,
>>
>> On Mon, 2016-09-19 at 18:18 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:
>>> I recently upgraded a machine to 16.04 (a bit late, I know) & I can't
>>> get the compose key to work (lwin is my preference, but nothing
>>> works).
>>> 
>>> I've tried dconf-editor, dconf CLI, & finally gsettings; they all say
>>> 'compose:lwin', but it still doesn't work.
>>> 
>>> $ gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options
>>> ['compose:lwin']
>>> 
>>> (I'm using gnome-flashback-metacity, BTW.)
>>> 
>>> I'd be grateful for any further suggestions.
>>
>> Try System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts (tab) -> Typing
>>
>> There you will find the setting for Compose and you can change it
>> there.
>>
>> Works for me. I use Right Alt, personally.
>
> None of those are working for me after the last upgrade.  And (to my
> annoyance) lwin isn't available there.

Aha, cracked it.  Turns out I had the following out-of-date solution
in '~/.profile' (no idea why it worked for 15.10 but not 16.04):

# .XCompose http://hdante.blogspot.com/2007/05/kiel-oni-skribas-typing-esperanto.html
export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim

I commented out the export line, logged out & back in, & then the
dconf solution took hold:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/input-sources/xkb-options "['compose:lwin']"

Woot!