KEYBOARD(6) KEYBOARD(6)
NAME
keyboard - how to type characters
DESCRIPTION
Keyboards are idiosyncratic. The differing conventions of
host operating systems make them more so for Inferno. In
all implementations, it should be obvious how to type
ordinary ASCII characters, backspace, tab, escape, and new-
line. When typing into the Inferno environment, the key
labelled Return or Enter generates a newline (0x0A); if
there is a key labelled Line Feed, it generates a carriage
return (0x0D); Inferno eschews CRLFs. All control charac-
ters are typed in the usual way; in particular, control-J is
a line feed and control-M a carriage return.
In native mode, on the PC and some other machines, the fol-
lowing extra conventions might also be used. The key
labelled Caps Lock acts as an additional control key. The
character erase key generates backspace. The key labelled
Del or Delete generates the delete character (0x7F). The
plethora of function keys generate values in the Unicode
user-defined space, as defined by /include/keyboard.h and
/module/keyboard.m. They are fitfully supported by applica-
tions, but Page Up and Page Down are often understood by Tk
applications.
Characters in Inferno are runes (see utf(6)). Any rune can
be typed using a compose key followed by several other keys.
The compose key is implementation-dependent, and is also
generally near the lower right of the main key area: either
Alt key on the PC, and in X11 implementations, whatever X11
regards as Alt or Meta. After typing the compose key, type
a capital `X' and exactly four hexadecimal characters (dig-
its and `a' to `f') to type a single rune with the value
represented by the typed number. There are shorthands for
many characters, comprising the compose key followed by a
two- or three-character sequence. There are several rules
guiding the design of the sequences, as illustrated by the
following examples. The full list is too long to repeat
here, but is contained in the file `/lib/keyboard' in a for-
mat suitable for grep(1).
A repeated symbol gives a variant of that symbol, e.g.,
?? yields ¿.
ASCII digraphs for mathematical operators give the cor-
responding operator, e.g., <= yields ≤.
Two letters give the corresponding ligature, e.g., AE
yields Æ.
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KEYBOARD(6) KEYBOARD(6)
Mathematical and other symbols are given by abbrevia-
tions for their names, e.g., pg yields ¶.
Chess pieces are given by a w or b followed by a letter
for the piece (k for king, q for queen, r for rook, n
for knight, b for bishop, or p for pawn), e.g., wk for
a white king.
Greek letters are given by an asterisk followed by a
corresponding latin letter, e.g., *d yields δ.
Cyrillic letters are given by an at sign followed by a
corresponding latin letter or letters, e.g., @ya yields
я.
Script letters are given by a dollar sign followed by
the corresponding regular letter, e.g., $F yields ℱ.
A digraph of a symbol followed by a letter gives the
letter with an accent that looks like the symbol, e.g.,
,c yields ç.
Two digits give the fraction with that numerator and
denominator, e.g., 12 yields ½.
The letter s followed by a character gives that charac-
ter as a superscript, e.g., s1 yields ¹.
Sometimes a pair of characters give a symbol related to
the superimposition of the characters, e.g., cO yields
©.
A mnemonic letter followed by $ gives a currency sym-
bol, e.g., l$ yields £.
Note the difference between ß (ss) and µ (micron) and the
Greek β and μ.
FILES
/lib/keyboard sorted table of characters and keyboard
sequences
SEE ALSO
acme(1), wm-brutus(1), intro(1), unicode(1), cons(3),
utf(6), kbdputc(10.2)
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