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#1 2013-09-06 15:51:39

stefano
Member
Registered: 2011-04-09
Posts: 258

How to input polytonic (classic) Greek characters?

Hi all,

I need some help on setting up an Arch system in which I can temporarily switch from English to polytonic (classic) Greek input.

I work in English, but I do need to input short citations in p. Greek in a text I am working on (in LyX/Latex). If I copy and paste Greek text into LyX everything works fine (I am using LuaTeX as backend, which is unicode-based). I do have a font with the proper Greek glyphs, etc.  The only element missing is the input. How can I type accented Greek characters into LyX (and, possibly, LIbreOffice). I looked into temporarily switching keyboards, but the docs on the Arch site did not help much. Most likely because I am not completely clear on how to achieve my desired goal and therefore I don't quite know what to look for.

Help is appreciated.

Cheers,

Stefano

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#2 2013-09-17 12:58:31

cellisten
Member
From: Gothenburg
Registered: 2013-08-08
Posts: 30
Website

Re: How to input polytonic (classic) Greek characters?

This should help you:
http://www.frame-poythress.org/keyboard … -gnulinux/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oiK … bk/preview

What you are missing are keymaps to map certain keys on your keyboard to specific characters. There are some suggestions in the links above.
Best regards
/Balder

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#3 2013-09-21 18:52:41

OlaffTheGreat
Member
Registered: 2013-06-03
Posts: 107

Re: How to input polytonic (classic) Greek characters?

I use myself a multilingual system including some asian scripts languages as japanese. I use also a little bit LaTeX in where I can use those languages.

I use 2 differents settings :
A - for complexe scripts languages, I use a classical IM switcher such as ibus. Actually I use fcitx which works wonder (I tried ibus and its former scim and uim). There, need to to install the im packages, the concerned language support for this im, and related fonts.

To make a specific script available, I manage locales first :

# vim /etc/locale.gen # where you select language you need by uncomment it
# /usr/sbin/locale-gen

Before, it was necessary to activate the engine with im-switch. It seems now (for fcitx) it is not needed anymore.

B - to switch directly from qwerty to azerty, and having right the way acces to accents letters, I use setxkbmap that launch automatically on login through a tiny script :

setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:shifts_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,fr-latin9

Here could replace fr-latin9 by "gr-something" (the one related to old greek).
I switch with 2 ways :
- by holding right alt key on, release it switch back to qwerty,
- or by pressing both shit keys, making the switch permanent until I press again the both shifts. (It creates a virtual access to the french "altgr" key, therefore to allow 3rd and 4th levels layouts, very usefull for polish or nordic scripts with many accents and various letters).


Lenovo Thinkpad x230 i5-3320M 2.6GHz 250GB SSD (M4) 16GB
SSD | SeaBIOS | GPT | BTRFS | OpenRC | Xfce4 | Zsh | Tmux | Spacemacs
* "Aware Newbie" *
Ibus IM for language script support (e.g. 日本語 - 中文)

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#4 2013-11-13 20:19:20

filoktetes
Member
From: Skien, Norway
Registered: 2003-12-29
Posts: 287

Re: How to input polytonic (classic) Greek characters?

I don't know if you found a solution yet. The previous help might have worked for you, but I'll write how I do it here anyway, since I use polytonic greek input every day, and it took me quite some time to figure it out.

A general way is this command:

setxkbmap -layout no,el -variant ,polytonic grp:shift_toggle

and change "no" into whatever other keymap you use normally. You change layout by pressing both shift keys at once.

If you use KDE you can go to System Settings/Input Devices/Keyboard/Layouts
and select the checkbox for Configure Layouts.
Then you add the Greej layout with Polytonic variant.
To select keys to switch between layouts, go to the Advanced tab, and choose what you like in the "Switching to another layout" list.

The most difficult part for me was to find the combinations for the diacritics. Following the keyboard layout maps doesn't seem to work. The reason is that you have to specify the diacritical marks in the proper order.
The order is:

1. iota subscriptum (ie. ῃ)
2. accent (ie. ὴ)
3. breathing (ie. ἡ)

So you can get: ᾓ

Last edited by filoktetes (2013-11-13 20:20:33)

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#5 2013-12-06 20:38:22

stefano
Member
Registered: 2011-04-09
Posts: 258

Re: How to input polytonic (classic) Greek characters?

Sorry for the late reply.

After I found a solution (which was exceedingly complex) I had to switch to a new system and could not replicate it. Your solution is simple and it almost works. The only thing I cannot figure out is how to input diacritics. I ste the system to use the us international variant and the Greek polytonic, with:

setxkbmap -layout us,el -variant intl,polytonic grp:shift_toggle

I did not set the compose key explicitly, but it is somehow mapped to right windows key by default. With this set up, I can get accented Latin characters with the compose key when using the US keyboard, but I cannot get any diacritic sign over (or under) the Greek characters (unaccented Greek is fine).

How do you do it?

Stefano

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