Optional dead key on backtick/tilde

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1

I am trying to get a dead key on my keyboard using windows.

Normally the backtick/tilde key does what I want.
But occasionally I want it to work as a dead key, so I can type é and stuff like that.

I mapped a ALTGR layer to the ‘esc’ key, so I was hoping to that I could keep the normal behaviour and the when in the ALTGR layer I could map backtick/tilde to work as a dead key instead.

On a standard US keyboard, there is no dead key - so that makes it a bit harder.
I tried changing the layout to a English International. That gets me the dead key behaviour, but it replaces the normal behaviour for the keys.

I can’t install software on my PC at work :-/ So WinCompose is not an option.

Any suggestions?

2

what are you doing with prog? Could it be a dead key? I know nothing about Windows international support, just offering a suggestion. :slight_smile:

3

I think prog would make an excellent dead key (or compose key, or generic leader key), since it’s inconvenient only if it sends input when held on its own, but could be useful for other things.

@lasse – Are you saying that the problem is that the US International layout changes the behaviour of other keys on the keyboard, or is the problem that you have no backtick/tilde key if you make this change?

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4

Yeah. The prog key could be a great dead key. Right now I have it mapped to esc - that is not really the issue.

The issue is what do I write in my firmware code?

I have a mapping for Key_Backtick and in windows that will be backtick or a dead key backtick depending if my layout is US or english international.

So I can’t just put Key_Backtick on the backtick key and on prog.
So what DO I put there?

5

Lets just say that my layout is US english (on windows).

How would I map prog to be a dead key?

6

If I understand the Windows US International layout correctly, it turns several keys into dead keys, one for each of the supported diacritics. The way to get those characters, including backtick, is to type space after the dead key.

Does that work?

7

Yes. Typing space works.

I suppose I could make a macro that does that do get the normal behavior… Good thinking.