Re: French lyrics and accented characters

[David Wright]

On Thu 04 Jul 2024 at 21:11:29 (+0100), Raphael Mankin wrote:
> On 04/07/2024 16:48, Jean Abou Samra wrote:
> > Le jeudi 04 juillet 2024 à 15:21 +0100, Raphael Mankin a écrit :
> > Anyhow, I persist in my opinion that facilitating the input of accented
> > characters is best done at a level different than LilyPond.
> > 
> I don't disagree with you. Using a compose  key is all very well for a
> small set, but the memory load of remembering al the compose sequences
> is another matter, particularly for relatively infrequent use.

Don't try to memorise them. Rather, look at the system's default
Compose sequences, which on Debian are stored at:
  /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose
Search or scroll down to "agrave", where the French diacriticals
start, and notice that they're mnemonic:

  Compose ` a   makes à, as does  Compose a `

So for French, you only have to remember Compose and '`",^
and not forgetting:

  Compose a e   makes æ, and  Compose o e   makes œ.

While you get used to Compose, just guess: it usually works.
When it doesn't, you can just make up your own sequence.
And I can't imagine proofreading text full of html strings.

> The question is what is the most ergonomic way of solving the problem:
> special keyboards? Years ago I saw a typewriter with two keyboards,
> one ordinary one, and one for mathematical symbols. Nowadays we can
> have programmable keycap symbols that can change as we press
> shift/alt/compose. That may be a way to go - relatively cheap and can
> be handled at the OS level.

I can't quite see the point of having to learn another keyboard layout
just to type French. (And yet another for a song in German, really?)
Character composition is so powerful and extensible, and beyond just
languages.

Cheers,
David.