KEYBOARD(7) KEYBOARD(7)
NAME
keyboard - how to type characters
DESCRIPTION
Keyboards are idiosyncratic. It should be obvious how to
type ordinary ASCII characters, backspace, tab, escape, and
newline. In Plan 9, the key labeled Return or Enter gener-
ates a newline (0x0A); if there is a key labeled Line Feed,
it generates a carriage return (0x0D); Plan 9 eschews CRLFs.
All control characters are typed in the usual way; in par-
ticular, control-J is a line feed and control-M a carriage
return.
The down arrow, used by 9term(1), acme(1), and sam(1),
causes windows to scroll forward. The up arrow scrolls
backward.
Characters in Plan 9 are runes (see utf(7)). Any 16-bit rune
can be typed using a compose key followed by several other
keys. The compose key is also generally near the lower
right of the main key area: the NUM PAD key on the Gnot, the
Alternate key on the Next, the Compose key on the SLC, the
Option key on the Magnum, and either Alt key on the PC.
After typing the compose key, type a capital `X' and exactly
four hexadecimal characters (digits and `a' to `f') to type
a single rune with the value represented by the typed num-
ber. There are shorthands for many characters, comprising
the compose key followed by a two- or three-character
sequence. The full list is too long to repeat here, but is
contained in the file `/usr/local/plan9/lib/keyboard' in a
format suitable for grep(1) or look(1). To add a sequence,
edit that file and then rebuild devdraw(1).
There are several rules guiding the design of the sequences,
as illustrated by the following examples.
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.
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
Page 1 Plan 9 (printed 4/20/24)
KEYBOARD(7) KEYBOARD(7)
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 ⁱ. These charac-
ters are taken from the Unicode block 0x2070; the 1, 2,
and 3 superscripts in the Latin-1 block are available
by using a capital S instead of s.
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.
X WINDOWS
Under X Windows, both the Alt key and the ``Multi key'' can
begin a compose sequence in a Plan 9 program.
It is also possible to configure X Windows to use the same
keystroke mappings as the Plan 9 programs. First, generate
an XCompose sequence list by using mklatinkbd:
mklatinkbd -x $PLAN9/lib/keyboard >$HOME/.XCompose
Second, configure a ``Multi key'' by running
xmodmap -e 'keysym Super_L = Multi_key'
(The name `Super_L' typically denotes the Windows key on
recent keyboards.)
Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 4/20/24)
KEYBOARD(7) KEYBOARD(7)
Third, set these environment variables so that GTK- and QT-
based programs will use the compose sequences:
export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
Finally, start a new GTK- or QT-based program:
gnome-terminal &
In that terminal, typing the key sequence `Windows * a'
should be interpreted as the Greek letter `α'.
If using the GNOME Window Manager, put the xmodmap and
export commands into the file $HOME/.gnomerc to run them
automatically at startup.
FILES
/usr/local/plan9/lib/keyboard
sorted table of characters and keyboard sequences
SEE ALSO
intro(1), ascii(1), tcs(1), 9term(1), acme(1), sam(1),
utf(7)
Page 3 Plan 9 (printed 4/20/24)