Ubuntu's <Compose> key is a nice feature for those who use the US keyboard layout but also:
- Use other languages and must avail themselves of non-English letters,
- Wish to have easy access to non-keyboard characters (like £ or €),
Ubuntu permits us to easily assign any of a number of keys to be the <Compose> key. To do so, you must first install gnome-tweak-tool:
Code:
sudo install gnome-tweak-tool
It will show up in the app list as "Tweaks".
If it isn't showing, you can alternately launch it with:
<Alt> + <F2> → gnome-tweaks
or type into terminalThen:
Tweaks → Keyboard & Mouse → Compose Key → Turn on the slider button.
This yields a number of options: Scroll Lock, PrtSc, Menu, Right Alt, Right Ctrl, Right Super, Caps Lock, Left Ctrl.
If you are happy sacrificing one of these keys, say, <Caps Lock> for use as <Compose>, then select it and it will henceforth stop locking your letters into capitals and instead be used as <Compose>.
Easy peasy (as far as it goes).
But the problem is that all of these keys have other legitimate uses. Though infrequent, there are times that I want to use <Caps Lock> for a long string of capitalized letters. One might imagine that <ScrLk> or <PrtScn> are otherwise useless keys that would make good candidates, but:
- Not all keyboards have them,
- They can be tiny, hard to find and awkwardly placed,
- <ScrLk> still has legacy use (eg MS Excel), and
- <PrtScn> has a rare but critical system-level use that we do not wish to break (see REISUB).