Chapter 13. Using special characters in GNOME

Procedure

1. Click on the Activities button in the upper-left corner of the screen.
2. Type Settings and click on the Settings icon to open the Settings application.
3. In the Settings window, click on Keyboard in the left sidebar.
4. Scroll down and select the Compose Key option.
5. Toggle the slider to enable the Compose Key.
6. Select the key you want to use as the Compose Key.
7. Once you have selected the Compose Key, close the Settings window.

Procedure

1. Allow all clients to connect to the X server:

   # xhost +

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

2. Run the following command to set the Compose Key:

   # su - <username> -c "gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options \"['compose:<compose_key>']\""

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

   Replace <username> with the username of the user for whom you want to enable the Compose Key. Replace <compose_key> with the key you want to use as the Compose Key. You can use the ralt option to designate the right Alt key as the Compose Key.

   To see other Compose Key options that you can use to set up a Compose Key on your keyboard, use:

   $ grep compose /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

3. Resets the access control:

   # xhost -

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

Procedure

1. Create the /etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-compose-key configuration file with the following content:

   [org/gnome/desktop/input-sources]
   xkb-options=['compose:<compose_key>']

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

   Replace <compose_key> with the key you want to use as the Compose Key. You can use the ralt option to designate the right Alt key as the Compose Key.

   To see other Compose Key options that you can use to set up a Compose Key on your keyboard, use:

   $ grep compose /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

2. Update the dconf database with the new configuration:

   # dconf update

   Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
3. Restart your system or log out and log back in to your GNOME session for the changes to take effect.