🚀 go-pugleaf

Michael Rowland (rowley@theporch.raider.net) wrote:
: freek@phil.ruu.nl (Freek Wiedijk) writes:
: 
: > I wrote:
: > >> Related question: in which word processors is it possible to combine
: > >> _arbitrary_ letters with _arbitrary_ accents?
: > 
: > rowley@theporch.raider.net (Michael Rowland) writes:
: > >ANY word processor can do it on the Mac... it's built into the operating 
: > >system. Using KeyCaps find out the keyboard locations of the diacritical 
: > >you want; they are Option-key strokes. For instance, the umlaut is 
: > >Option-U; the tilde is Option-N, other accents are located as Option keys 
: > >hidden behind other vowels... circumflex is Option-I, etc. These are 
: > >"dead-key" combinations...they take two keystrokes. Hold down the Option 
: > >key and strike a lowercase u... at first nothing will happen...THEN 
: > >strike the vowel you want to put the umlaut over, and it will show up 
: > >onscreen complete with diacritical.
: > 
: > Interesting.  So, to put a tilde accent on a capital E, I'll have to
: > type Option-n Shift-e, right?  (Try it, you will see that it won't
: > work...)
: > 
Currently I am trying to set up a font-set for classical Greek, in which
there are four accents, seven vowels, and three breathings, plus an 
extra character used to indicate contractions in which an iota is lost.
The combinations of accents, vowels and breathings comes to about 134
separate vowel characters that I have to generate. So, I used resedit
to set up a keyboard layout file with deadkeys everywhere....
If anyone wants more info, drop me a note.

Now I am editing fonts (using resedit...). 
Yes, you do need to have a separate character for each accent combination,
unless your word processor supports overstrikes. Word 4 does, but that
would mean defining manymanymany special codes that you would have to use.
Not practical in my opinion.

Art (eschen@molbio.cbs.umn.edu)