keyboard setting

[NW]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:03:31 +0300
Mihamina Rakotomandimby <mihamina at gulfsat.mg> wrote:

> Manao ahoana, Hello, Bonjour,
> 
> My wife's laptop is with a "qwerty" (us) keyboard, but she has to
> correctly write french, with é, à, ç,..., at least in abiword, but
> preferrably on all applications requiring input (claws-mail, epiphany
> browser textareas, pidgin,...).
> 
> I would like then to tweak the keyboard map to have é,à,è,ç in the
> simplest way, at the user DE level.
> 
> Using XFCE (Xubuntu lucid) what are your advices for that?
> 
> Misaotra, Thanks, Merci.
> 
> 
As a follow up to my last reply. It is quite easy to set up the compose key in Xfce I have found. The command is 

setxkbmap -option compose:lwin

Here I have chosen the left Windows key as the compose key but there are others such as ralt for the right alt key and rwin for the right Windows key.

So I created a one line text file with the above command in it and saved it as 'compose'. I made it executable. To make it run every time I log on I went to 

menu --> settings --> session and startup then I clicked on the Application Autostart tab, then the Add button and typed in the file location. Now the file will run every time I log on.

You can search with google to find a list of key combinations for your special characters. The method is first tap the compose key then the combination for the character you want.

for ê for example tap the compose key then shift on 6 (on my GB keyboard anyway) and then the letter e.

Hope this helps

Neil