[SOLVED] Turning off the auto accent feature

[rickbsgu]

Fresh install of Kubuntu on Gutsy Gibbon.

I need to get single and double quotes - if I hit the quote key twice, I get something that looks like a quote, but doesn´t register as a quote in vim or the shell.

The double-hit feature to get special chars is interesting, but I´d like to be able to turn it off.

Ultimately, I´d like to get real double/single quotes.

I´m scouring the docs, but not finding anything apparent on this feature, and I´ve scoured the forum. Unfortunately, the search isn´t specific enough - if I type ´single quote´ (for instance), I get a zillion hits for ´single´.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Still scouring.

Thanx,
rickb

[cantab]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

That is weird.
Single quotes: '
and double quotes: "
and backquotes: `
all work as expected on my system. I have a UK keyboard and system language set to British English. What are your keyboard and languages?

[rickbsgu]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

Right...

If you look at my original message, you can see the single quotes don't look like " ' ", but look rather like an accent character. Similarly, double quotes look almost like an umlaut character.

My keyboard/character set is US standard. Except for the necessity of double tapping certain characters to get that character rather than an internationalized character (accented, graved, umlauted, etc) everything seems to work right, except for the quotes. I have to double tap those, too, but I don't get quotes.

I'll have to put them in a text file and od it to see what the heck they are. Theyr'e not quotes.

I've moved over to gnome until I can solve this - it does standard character mapping ok.

Thanx,
rickb

[rickbsgu]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

bump.

Really would like to know what this thing is called, and how to disable it. It's driving me to distraction.

I just want my keyboard to behave as a normal keyboard, and not anticipate what it thinks I want to do.

I'm having to back out of KDE for the moment, and go to gnome until I can get this resolved.

Any thoughts appreciated.

rickb

[mchuskie]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

By "double-tap" you mean you press the key twice in succession, and then the two characters you have typed get replaced by a single character?

That's weird. Never encountered that before (except in MS Word under Windows) and I can't reproduce it using a UK keyboard.

Hmm... a quick search for "kde quote characters" produced http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000044 - have you got "US English" or "US English w/deadkeys" as your layout? (Or, have you selected "intl" as your variant?) That seems to be the reason for this behaviour.

[rickbsgu]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

Yeah, "dead keys" is the feature I was trying to disable. I didn't even know what it was called...

I went over to the KDE forum and got some answers there - apparently, the default setting enabled the deadkeys, somehow. I reset the variant to something else, and then back to default, and the problem went away.

Whew!

Now I can use KDE for serious work...

rickb

[Teunis]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

I've always set my (US) keyboard to US Intl as it, as the name implies, allows to type characters with accents like ä, û or ñ.
The trick is indeed 'dead keys' a strange description for the option to first type the accent and then the letter to apply it to.

In case of the single or double quote it means you start with the appropriate key followed by (no surprise!) a space.
The double quote shows as: ¨ when hit twice and as " when followed by a space.
For the single quote: ´ and '.

[rickbsgu]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

In case of the single or double quote it means you start with the appropriate key followed by (no surprise!) a space.
The double quote shows as: ¨ when hit twice and as " when followed by a space.
For the single quote: ´ and '.

OH. That is quite a surprise, actually.

Anyway, I set it to US standard and can use the compose key to create the occasional accented character (still a nice feature.)

Thanks,
rickb

[gnowak]

Re: Turning off the auto accent feature

I can see some people are putting a [SOLVED] or *Solved* tag in their subject when the problem is solved. Why is this tag so rare?

How to tag:
The author of the thread, must modify the first message by manually editing the subject title.

Of course.. I don't know if the author of this thread is satisfied with the answer ;-)

I think the [SOLVED] tag in the subject title would make the forum system more efficient for helping people who need help.

To all thread authors, consider using this tag. You can always start a new thread being more specific about an unanswered question, which rarely is the same as the original subject title.

[rickbsgu]

Re: [SOLVED] Turning off the auto accent feature

Ok, done.

It would be nice if the forum had a button somewhere to do this automatically.

Thanks,
rickb

[Snowhog]

Re: [SOLVED] Turning off the auto accent feature

It would be nice if the forum had a button somewhere to do this automatically.

That would be a most difficult option. The button would have to be visible only to the original poster and nobody else.

[gnowak]

Re: [SOLVED] Turning off the auto accent feature

I agree with you rickb.

I don't understand why it would be a most difficult option. With php you can do almost anything? But of course, I don't know how this forum works or what it is based on.

Keep up the good work ;-)

[Snowhog]

Re: [SOLVED] Turning off the auto accent feature

Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the poster.

"When in Rome ...."