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 NAME     
 |  |  |  | keyboard – how to type characters 
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 DESCRIPTION     
 |  |  |  | Keyboards are idiosyncratic. It should be obvious how to type
    ordinary ASCII characters, backspace, tab, escape, and newline.
    In Plan 9, the key labeled Return or Enter generates a newline
    (0x0A); if there is a key labeled Line Feed, it generates a carriage
    return (0x0D); Plan 9 eschews CRLFs. All control characters are
    typed in the usual way; in
    particular, control-J is a line feed and control-M a carriage
    return. 
    
    
    The down arrow, used by 9term(1), acme(1), and sam(1), causes
    windows to scroll forward. The up arrow scrolls backward. 
    
    
    Characters in Plan 9 are runes (see utf(7)). Any 16-bit rune can
    be typed using a compose key followed by several other keys. The
    compose key is also generally near the lower right of the main
    key area: the NUM PAD key on the Gnot, the Alternate key on the
    Next, the Compose key on the SLC, the Option key on the Magnum,
    and either Alt key
    on the PC. After typing the compose key, type a capital X and
    exactly four hexadecimal characters (digits and a to f) to type
    a single rune with the value represented by the typed number.
    There are shorthands for many characters, comprising the compose
    key followed by a two- or three-character sequence. The full list
    is too long to repeat here, but is
    contained in the file /usr/lib/plan9/lib/keyboard
    in a format suitable for grep(1) or look(1). To add a sequence,
    edit that file and then rebuild devdraw(1). 
    
    
    There are several rules guiding the design of the sequences, as
    illustrated by the following examples. 
 Note the difference between ß (ss) and µ (micron) and the Greek
    β and μ.|  |  |  | A repeated symbol gives a variant of that symbol, e.g., ?? yields
        ¿. ASCII digraphs for mathematical operators give the corresponding
        operator, e.g., <= yields ≤.
 Two letters give the corresponding ligature, e.g., AE yields Æ.
 Mathematical and other symbols are given by abbreviations for
        their names, e.g., pg yields ¶.
 Chess pieces are given by a w or b followed by a letter for the
        piece (k for king, q for queen, r for rook, n for knight, b for
        bishop, or p for pawn), e.g., wk for a white king.
 Greek letters are given by an asterisk followed by a corresponding
        latin letter, e.g., *d yields δ.
 Cyrillic letters are given by an at sign followed by a corresponding
        latin letter or letters, e.g., @ya yields я.
 Script letters are given by a dollar sign followed by the corresponding
        regular letter, e.g., $F yields ℱ.
 A digraph of a symbol followed by a letter gives the letter with
        an accent that looks like the symbol, e.g., ,c yields ç.
 Two digits give the fraction with that numerator and denominator,
        e.g., 12 yields ½.
 The letter s followed by a character gives that character as a
        superscript, e.g., s1 yields ⁱ. These characters are taken from
        the Unicode block 0x2070; the 1, 2, and 3 superscripts in the
        Latin-1 block are available by using a capital S instead of s.
 Sometimes a pair of characters give a symbol related to the superimposition
        of the characters, e.g., cO yields ©.
 A mnemonic letter followed by $ gives a currency symbol, e.g.,
        l$ yields £.
 | 
 
 X WINDOWS     It is also possible to configure X Windows to use the same keystroke
    mappings as the Plan 9 programs. First, generate an XCompose sequence
    list by using mklatinkbd:Under X Windows, both the Alt key and the “Multi key” can begin
    a compose sequence in a Plan 9 program.
 
 Second, configure a “Multi key” by running|  |  |  | mklatinkbd −x $PLAN9/lib/keyboard >$HOME/.XCompose 
 | 
 
 (The name Super_L typically denotes the Windows key on recent
    keyboards.) 
    
    
    Third, set these environment variables so that GTK- and QT-based
    programs will use the compose sequences:|  |  |  | xmodmap −e 'keysym Super_L = Multi_key' 
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 Finally, start a new GTK- or QT-based program:|  |  |  | export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
 
 | 
 In that terminal, typing the key sequence ‘Windows * a’ should
    be interpreted as the Greek letter α. 
    
    
    If using the GNOME Window Manager, put the xmodmap and export
    commands into the file $HOME/.gnomerc to run them automatically
    at startup.
 
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 FILES     
 SEE ALSO     
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