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I'm running Linux (Ubuntu 20.04) with the XFCE4 window manager. I know some ways to remap the CAPSLOCK key to either be a no-op or to emulate a different key. However, I'm wondering if there is a way to map CAPSLOCK as a dead key?

In other words, I'd like to do things like the following ...

CAPSLOCK + a  =>  á
CAPSLOCK + n  =>  ñ
... etc. ...

I know about ~/.XCompose, but I haven't been able to find any docs about how to map CAPSLOCK as a dead key, or even if that's possible.

Thank you in advance for any thoughts and suggestions.

PS: Note that the term "dead key" has a special meaning. It does not mean "a key that is mapped to do nothing" (and I even specified above that I already know how to make CAPSLOCK be a no-op, and that is not what I'm asking about here). What follows is a more complete definition of "dead key", as I am using the term here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_key

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2
  • Double posting is not recommended.
    – harrymc
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 15:17
  • I have now deleted the post in the other forum. It was sitting there unanswered for 2 days, and I had forgotten to delete it when posting here.
    – HippoMan
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 16:43

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I'm doing something similar, albeit not with XFace, and not quite as simplistic as your mappings.

I for instance want to be able to produce àáâäå as well, so I use a cadence of keys ...

Setting it up like so:

/usr/bin/setxkbmap -model pc105 -layout us -variant altgr-intl -option nodeadkeys,compose:caps

That command resides in my ~/.fluxbox/startup

This then allows me to e.g. create an á with the following sequence of Keys:

Caps+' a

Other examples: ñ

Caps+~ n

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  • Aha! That works! Thank you very much. Well, actually, it doesn't work in xterm windows, but it does indeed work in other apps such as browsers, etc. I wonder if there's something special I have to do in order to get it to work in xterm. Oh, and it works in emacs, also.
    – HippoMan
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 22:37
  • That's odd ... what's your locale, how's your xterm set-up? I'm using en_US.UTF-8 and it works in all apps, including xterm and rxvt-unicode ...
    – tink
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 22:44
  • Yes, my locale is also en_US.UTF-8. And I usually use rxvt-unicode. I'll investigate further
    – HippoMan
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 22:45
  • Perhaps my xterm issue is due to the following (???) ... When IM framework such as ibus is installed and activated, pure X applications (X clients which was designed to get keyboard inputs from X server through X connection with XIM) protocol) such as xterm and rxvt-unicode don't talk to the X server directly for keyboard inputs. The IM framework such as ibus handles actual keyboard inputs and pass processed data to X clients using XIM protocol from its daemon such as ibus-daemon, instead.
    – HippoMan
    Commented Aug 16, 2022 at 23:05
  • I'm also using Ubuntu 20.04, rxvt is compiled w/ XIM support, but it's still just working for me .... maybe fluxbox does something differently to xface?
    – tink
    Commented Aug 17, 2022 at 2:12

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