Compose key oddity

[Andriy Gapon]

on 27/04/2010 07:39 John W said the following:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm just learning about the great thing that is the compose key.
> For the most part things work fine, but I can't compose the 'ellipsis'
> character, for some reason.
> Everything looks set up correctly, so I'm curious if someone has tips
> on tracking down this particular issue.
> 
> Here's what I did:
> 
> I added this to my .xinitrc:
> 
>     setxkbmap -option compose:lwin -option compose:rwin
> 
> And indeed, I can use the windows keys to compose accented characters, etc.
> 
> However, when I press <compose> <period> <period>, I get the "DOT
> ABOVE" character (U+02D9). Looks like: ˙
> 
> Now, when I look inside /usr/local/lib/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose,
> the relevant lines are:
> 
>     <dead_abovedot> <space>                 : "˙"   abovedot # DOT ABOVE
>     <dead_abovedot> <dead_abovedot>         : "˙"   abovedot # DOT ABOVE
>     # (snip)
>     <Multi_key> <period> <period>           : "…"   ellipsis #
> HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS
> 
> And so this is where I am stumped.
> That last line would indicate to me that I should be able to make an
> ellipsis with, for instance, rwin+period+period.

Very strange, I get ellipses doing the same.

> Yet instead, I get DOT ABOVE.
> 
> My LANG is en_US.UTF-8, so I think I'm looking in the right file.
> I don't understand how dead keys are set up, so I don't know if those
> other lines are having some effect.
> 
> Is there some other configuration file(s) that are influencing things?

~/.XCompose
And also your keyboard layout, of course.
Perhaps when you press '.' button you indeed get dead_abovedot symbol in X?

What's your keyboard layout?
What happens if you just pres <dot> <dot> (without Compose key)?
You can also run xev and see what keyboard events get generated on various key
presses.

> This is FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE, with Xorg 7.4.2; X.Org X Server 1.6.1, in
> case that matters.

I don't think that this is a FreeBSD-specific issue.
There is a specialized xkb mailing list:
http://listserv.bat.ru/xkb/List.html

-- 
Andriy Gapon