[SOLVED] Problems typing diacritics

[Fernando]

Hi.
I just updated to 21.10 and I'm finding I can't type diacritics properly. When I say "diacritics" I mean the graphic mark over vowels that is used in, for example, Spanish language. Usually, one would type first the diacritic and then the vowel you want marked; when the diacritic is typed, nothing is supposed to show on screen until the vowel is typed but, whenever I try, as soon as I type the diacritic, I get the mark over a lower dash (if that is its name) and then, when I type the vowel, I get the completed set, so in this case the result is acceptable although the process is weird. What is even weirder and at all acceptable is, if I try to type diacritics with a vowel within a cell in a table in LibreOffice Writer, as soon as I type the diacritic key I get the mark alone and the cursor automatically jumps into the next cell.
I've tried to look for any cause in the system language configuration, in the LibreOffice language settings and everywhere I could think of, but I'm rather lost.
Any help would be much appreciated!

[sithlord48]

Does this happen in all input boxes ? If so check System Settings -> input -> keyboard advanced there are a lot of options there one my help you. If its only libre office i would check options in the application.

[Fernando]

Does this happen in all input boxes ? If so check System Settings -> input -> keyboard advanced there are a lot of options there one my help you. If its only libre office i would check options in the application.

Yes, it happens all around the system. Of course is more noticeable in LibreOffice because of the problem with tables. All the keyboard advanced options seem to be unrelated and I never changed them in the first place...

[jlittle]

I think your keyboard layout has changed. System settings, hardware, keyboard, layouts tab.

diacritics

The keys that you press like that are called "dead keys". The default Kubuntu layout, "us", does not have any. I use "eu - EurKEY" because it has a "dead greek" key for typing greek letters, which I use as place holders sometimes. Some language layouts, like French, have many variants that change around the dead keys. Unfortunately the layout preview doesn't show the variants, so finding the dead keys of a particular variant is a mission.

Can you remember the keyboard layout you chose when installing Kubuntu? I suspect that's the one you want.

There are alternatives to using dead keys. The compose key, if you configure one, will let you type diacritics, but it's an extra key press. Some layouts have letters with diacritics you get with the Alt-Gr key, which is normally the right Alt key, but these may not be intuitive, for example, in the eu layout Alt-Gr-g is é.

[Fernando]

I think your keyboard layout has changed. System settings, hardware, keyboard, layouts tab.

The keys that you press like that are called "dead keys". The default Kubuntu layout, "us", does not have any. I use "eu - EurKEY" because it has a "dead greek" key for typing greek letters, which I use as place holders sometimes. Some language layouts, like French, have many variants that change around the dead keys. Unfortunately the layout preview doesn't show the variants, so finding the dead keys of a particular variant is a mission.

Can you remember the keyboard layout you chose when installing Kubuntu? I suspect that's the one you want.

There are alternatives to using dead keys. The compose key, if you configure one, will let you type diacritics, but it's an extra key press. Some layouts have letters with diacritics you get with the Alt-Gr key, which is normally the right Alt key, but these may not be intuitive, for example, in the eu layout Alt-Gr-g is é.

Thanks, jlittle!
I'm using the Catalan keyboard layout (a variant from Spanish, with a middle dot for l·l) and everything seems to be OK, other than this strange problem with the diacritic behaving funny...

[Fernando]

I also just now noticed that I can write open diacritics ( ` )in LibreOffice tables. So is only the "closed" one key that makes the cursor jump cells...

[Fernando]

Ok, so I found yet another curious behavior in LibreOffice Writer: I can type vowels with diacritics if they're in the middle of a paragraph, but if I try to do it at the end of it (to add a new sentence, for example), pressing the diacritics key makes the cursor jump to the next paragraph (so, similar to what I see with cells in tables) but only if there is an existing further paragraph; otherwise, the diacritic works.
I've been having a look at the preview of the keyboard layout of the Catalan and Spanish languages and they seem to be identical. The problem remains whatever the keyboard layout I use.
Could it have something to do with the IBUS settings? I have no idea what this thing is, but it allows me to change languages too...

[Fernando]

Yes, it's the IBUS thing. I don't fully understand what it does, but it somehow interferes with my keyboard layout or something. As soon as I stopped the process I could type diacritics the way they are supposed to be typed. So now my question is: is it safe to uninstall IBUS?

[Fernando]

Yep. Problem solved. Uninstalled IBUS and everything is back to normal. Apparently IBUS is useful if/when one is in need of non-latin/western alphabets or characters. I don't know the full tale. Anyway, I don't need it, so I got rid of it and voilà!

[jlittle]

What a rabbit hole... the middle dot · has many uses.