User:ArielGlenn/polytonic f7

Setup

These instructions are good only for Fedora 7 and Fedora 8 and are absolutely untested everywhere else. Additionally, they are for gnome; I have no idea what the deal is for kde or other desktops.

environment variables

Edit your .bash_profile and add these two lines:

GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
export GTK_IM_MODULE

compose file

If your locale is en_US.UTF-8 you can skip the instructions below and just do (from a terminal window)

su
cd /usr/share/X11/locale
mv en_US.UTF-8/Compose en_US.UTF-8/Compose.bak
cp el_GR.UTF-8/Compose en_US.UTF-8/Compose

Otherwise...

If your locale is not el_GR.UTF-8 (check this by typing "locale" at the command line), you will need to (fro a terminal window)

su
cd /usr/share/X11/locale
grep lc_CC.UTF-8 compose.dir      (where lc_CC is the language and country code in your locale, i.e. everything before the ".UTF-8")

You'll see a line much like

en_US.UTF-8/Compose             tt_RU.UTF-8

Note the first value (in the example, en_US.UTF-8/Compose).

mv first-value first-value.bak
   (for example: mv en_US.UTF-8/Compose en_US.UTF-8/Compose.bak)
cp el_GR.UTF-8/Compose first-value
   (for example: cp el_GR.UTF-8/Compose en_US.UTF-8/Compose)

layout

Install your polytonic keyboard layout:

System->Preferences->Hardware->Keyboard

and choose the Layouts tab. Click the add button and select Greek polytonic.

If you don't have other keyboard layouts installed, go to the next tab which lets you figure out which key combination will change layouts for you.

activation

Now, time to log out and reboot. (When I tried logging out and just restarting X, many apps died.)

This information is modifed from Simos Xenitellis' blog.

Usage

Unfortunately the layout has some differences from the monotonic layout (besides just added characters) :-P Even more unfortunately, two of the characters that get overidden are [ and ].

οξεία           ; + a      ά
βαρεία          ' + a      ὰ
περισπωμένη     [ + a      ᾶ
υπογεγραμμένη   ] + a      ᾳ
δασεία          " + a      ἁ
ψιλή            : + a      ἀ
διαλυτικά       { + a      ϋ

These things are unchanged in the polytonic map:

; + . = · (άνω τελεία)

R_ALT + q = ·
R_ALT + Q = ·

R_ALT + e = €
R_ALT + E = €

R_ALT + < = «
R_ALT + > = »

Fonts

DejaVu has great coverage of the polytonic code block and so do the Magenta Open fonts. In order to make monospace your default font for textedit areas (and for display of <pre> blocks), for en.wiktionary you should go to firefox preferences (you are using firefox, aren't you?), select Content, clieck the "advanced" button under the fonts section, and set for Western the value monospace intead of courier for your fixed width font, and then magically everything will be better.