Re: How to type letter "é"?

Father Ignatius wrote:

The standard UK keyboard layout for Windows [1] already has é, in position AltGr+e. No need to switch layouts at all.

Please explain the notation "AltGr".

"Alternative Graphics" - or at lest that's what I _think_ it stands for. A key commonly found on non-US PC keyboards, in place of the right "Alt" key. (It's actually physically and logically exactly the same key, just with different markings on the keycap. What that key _does_ depends on your current keyboard layout. No, not the physical keyboard layout, but the current "active" logical keyboard layout that happens to be in effect in your operating system with your current regional settings. If you're using the US layout, "Alt Gr" will work just like the left "Alt" key, regardless of what it says on the keycap. If you're using, say, the Finnish layout, the same key - when chorded with other keys - will produce some extra characters that would have been otherwise hard to fit on the keyboard.)

See this photo for example:

<http://www.saunalahti.fi/znark/keyboard-fi.jpg>

"Alt Gr" is located to the right of "Space Bar". Note how some keys - especially those in the numeric row - have three symbols on them. The symbol marked up in the lower-right corner can be produced by holding down the "Alt Gr" key while pressing the other key - exactly the same way you produce alternative characters from the numeric row when using the "Shift" key.

National keyboard variants don't always bother explicitly marking up all the "Alt Gr" characters, though. (That's probably because the keyboard would become too "busy" and unsightly to look at if there are particularly many "Alt Gr" combinations defined.) For example, the UK keyboards don't usually have the previously-mentioned accented characters depicted on the keycaps, even though you _can_ produce them with the "Alt Gr" and "Shift" + "Alt Gr" combinations. You'll just have to know they're there. The above-mentioned Finnish keyboard layout, on the other hand, marks up almost all of them - the only missing ones are "Alt Gr" + e (for the "euro" currency sybol) and "Alt Gr" + m for the µ symbol - and even those are marked up on some of the newer keyboards.

There is currently a proposal of a revised Finnish keyboard layout under review. It would extend the current layout by defining a great deal of new "Alt Gr" combinations - including easy keystrokes for producing em dash, en dash, typographical quotes, etc. There would be more dead keys as well, for easily producing accented characters for the needs of various European languages. Some documents about that proposal can be viewed here (not to worry - they're in English):

<http://www.kotoistus.fi/avoimet/kbpropa2r.pdf>
<http://www.kotoistus.fi/avoimet/kbproprr.pdf>
<http://www.kotoistus.fi/avoimet/kbdiamsr.pdf>

The "US International" keyboard layout (provided with Windows, but not activated by default) also makes a good use of the "Alt Gr" (right "Alt") key.

As for totally customized keyboard layouts, the "Alt Gr" key (or the right "Alt" key, if that's how it is called on your keyboard - as it should be clear now, the name doesn't really matter) is often a good way to add whatever special characters you might need in your daily life but can't seem to readily find on your national keyboard layout. On Windows systems, Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator is the tool for these kind of jobs. Linux systems have their own methods. In essence, you can use your current keyboard layout as a base, adding the special characters behind otherwise unoccupied "Alt Gr" (or right "Alt") combinations. This removes the need to use clumsy tools like the Character Map, or memorizing "Alt" + numeric keypad codes if all you need is a couple of é's or en and em dashes every now and then.

--
znark

.

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