Mouse and keyboard lore/Unix

This is deprecated both because the link below doesn't exist and the keyboard is no longer available.

Specifically, how to remap the slider. I found this post about activating the between-keys zoom slider and using for scrolling instead of zooming:

http://rebelliard.com/enabling-scrolling-using-the-microsoft-natural-ergonomic-keyboard-4000s-zoom-slider-on-ubuntu-12-10/

The first (and easiest) solution worked for me on Linux Mint 13 (Ubuntu). For the second solution, which I didn't implement, but which I had already seen elsewhere, I had to go all the way to event7 before getting a reaction from the evtest application.

Composing special characters

Go to Keyboard preferences (System -> Preferences -> Keyboard or to the Unity gear icon and look for Keyboard) and select a Compose key by clicking the Layout tab, and then Options, then Compose key position. Pick a key; in the image below, I've chosen to use the left-side Windows key.

This illustration is from Lucid:

This illustration is from Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya, reached by Menu → Preferences → Keyboard → Layouts → Options → Position of Compose key:

The key you choose enables you to compose an accented character at the keyboard. To accomplish this, hold the key down and then type the accent character, see Key (and name) in the chart below, followed by the Key (character) you wish to place the accent on.

For example, to get ç, hold down the left Windows key, then press , (comma), followed by c.

Here's the table:

Special: ligatures

Special: fractions

Special: Guillemets (French: « and »)

Special: Ezset (German: ß)

Can't make it work?

This can take a little practice. Also, it doesn't work everywhere, but depends on where you're trying it. I can't think of a specific application that doesn't work, but I have encountered a few. What do work are: Terminal/Console command line, Facebook in Firefox/Chrome, vim/gvim.

Also, promptness seems to be an issue. For an acute e, for example, don't dilly-dally after pressing Win + '. Press e immediately. You may need to practice. For circumflex e, press and hold Shift + Win, then strike 6, then immediately e.

Really foreign characters like Han Chinese?

You're on your own there. The answer is possibly in the next section, but I always just ask a Chinese, Arabic, Indian, etc. friend to send me stuff in e-mail that I copy and paste. Since I'm incompetent in those languages, my needs are infrequent (usually only for testing software) and the trouble is adquately compensated.

Still another method: For Russian, I'm a lot more competent, but not on the keyboard yet. I usually browse for a word in Russian. For example, even if I happen to know the word, I just Google for "some-word in Russian" and see if it doesn't come up so I can copy and paste it.

More...

You can enter any character when you know its number. Do this:

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + u; you will see u where you that.
2. Before typing anything else, now type the hexadecimal number corresponding to the symbol you seek.
3. Press the SPACE bar to confirm.
4. For example, to type a degree symbol (°):
   1. Hold down SHIFT and CTRL.
   2. Type the letter u, then let go.
   3. Now type 00b0 (zero, zero, 'b', zero).
   4. Press the SPACE bar.
5. In the above, you don't even need to type the first two zeros (0), but only b0 and it will work.