Real Compose Key on Mac OS

Question

I am looking for a Mac OS utility that will allow me to use the Compose key sequences known from Linux. Using the Option key is not an alternative as I need it to be consistent with my existing Linux installation.

Answer 1

Based on information from the site LaC linked to I wrote a script that converts an X.org compose table to a cocoa keybindings file. Check my writeup for more information and download links.

Answer 2

You don't need a special utility. The Cocoa text system is very configurable, and you can set up key combinations and/or key sequences to perform various actions, including inserting special characters as in compose. See this excellent document.

Of course, you're going to have to spend a bit of time converting the sequences from your Linux compose file to Cocoa dictionary format. A script could probably help here.

Answer 3

Maybe try DoubleCommand?

DoubleCommand is software for Mac OS X (a kernel extension) that lets you remap keys, in other words change the way your keyboard works. Often used to make a PC keyboard more comfortable with a Mac, swapping the Alt (Option) and Windows (Command or Apple) keys, since they are in swapped positions on Mac and PC keyboards. DoubleCommand is a quick and easy way to fix this if you use a PC keyboard with your Mac.

Cheers!

Answer 4

I converted a list of compose keys from hermit.org/Linux/ComposeKeys.html to a simple tab-delimited format: gist.github.com/1004721.

They could be imported to a snippet application using some special delimiter or affix to avoid conflicts. Or AppleScript:

try
    set old to the clipboard
    tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
        set ans to text returned of (display dialog "" default answer "")
    end tell
    set sed to quoted form of ("s/^" & ans & "  \\(.*\\)/\\1/p")
    set sh to do shell script "sed -n " & sed & " /1/composekeys.txt"
    set the clipboard to sh
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using {command down}
    delay 0.03
    set the clipboard to old
end try