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I'm trying to get my F9 key to function as the dead_greek compose character. It's not working.

I have a custom keyboard layout in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us called mine. It has this entry for the F9 key:

key <FK09> { [ dead_greek, dead_greek, dead_greek, dead_greek ] };

I have other characters in thsi file as well, so I know the file is being used. I can also run xmodmap -pke | grep dead_greek and get this output:

keycode  75 = dead_greek dead_greek dead_greek dead_greek dead_greek dead_greek XF86Switch_VT_9 dead_greek dead_greek XF86Switch_VT_9

The dead_greek key is there, but none of the Compose combinations work. If I type dead_greek + a for example I just a, not α. This combination is listed in the /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose file, which I presume I'm using since other compose sequences from there work (but I'm positive as I don't know how to check which Compose file is in ue).

Why is my F9 not working as a dead_greek compose key?

For debugging I also ran xev and pressed F9. I get the output state 0x10, keycode 75 (keysym 0xfe8c, dead_greek), same_screen YES, indicating at least it is partially working, just not working as a greek compose key.

I'm using KDE in case that makes a difference. I also have multiple keyboard layouts, but the output from xmodmap shows dead_greek in all of the layouts.

edA-qa mort-ora-y
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1 Answers1

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dead_greek does not use the compose key

/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose does not just dictate compose key combinations. When it does, they start with <Multi_key>, for example,

<Multi_key> <period> <period>       : "…"   ellipsis # HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS

The entry for α is:

<dead_greek> <a>            : "α"   U03B1    # GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA

Therefore, you should NOT press Composedead_greeka. You should instead press dead_greeka.

As far as I can tell, your keymap is actually correct.

It's also worth noting that it didn't work in every application I tried (I was unable to use dead_greek in Sublime Text, but it worked in Google Chrome).

Nonny Moose
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