Software to enter

Accented Letters

AccentCompose keyboard software

On top of the US layout, the AccentCompose system provides small national additions in each of the supported European languages for added convenience, like ü/ä/ö, à/é/è or å/ä/ö, etc. This is implemented by a set of keyboard DLLs or installable keyboard drivers. This is the glue that binds together a US keyboard hardware with the national additions and the AccentCompose compose key system. These keyboard DLLs are mutually compatible, and one can change, say, from German (ü/ä/ö) to French (à/é/è) layout without losing the same AccentCompose capabilities, i.e. you can enter all the different accented letters with any of the national variant keyboards, the only difference are the custom national additions. The basic layout remaining the same (US QWERTY), the preferred language can be easily switched from German to French (avoiding any QWERTZ to AZERTY confusion).

Design principles

The system is built on mnemonic cues. The accent triggering keys are graphically reminiscent of the accents. / is used for acute (e.g. á), v for Czech hacek (č), o for ring above (å), etc. Entering accented letters is made easier by grouping the most used accents on the unshift plane, and on the right side of the keyboard. When the Compose key is the left Windows key, the right hand is free to enter the accent, followed by the base letter that receives the accent. Typing is fast. When the Compose key is not pressed, accent triggering keys act as normal keys, i.e. US keyboard’s [,],\,/,-,=,... keys are available as usual.  The US keyboard native keys (`/~, ;/:, ‘/” ) that are replaced by the 3 national custom additions (e.g. German (ü/ä/ö) or French (à/é/è)) are repositioned on the AltGr or Ctrl+Alt plane. Keys on the right (;/:, ‘/” ) can be entered by pressing Ctrl+Alt on the left, and the key on the left (`/~) by pressing AltGr (Right Alt) on the right. The need for finger dexterity is thus minimized. Note that while it would have been possible to use dead accents by putting them on the AltGr plane, the same number of keystrokes would be needed and the dead accent approach would have required simultaneous keypresses to enter accents whereas the AccentCompose approach is sequential.  

Symbols and more

The AccentCompose system has easy-to-remember key sequences for many common symbols (e.g. cr for ©, da for †, dd for ‡, dg for ° (degree), etc.). There are groups of special characters that have their own group triggering character. Entering these characters is easier thanks to the inverted numeric row, that is numbers are on the shift plane and symbols on the unshift plane. This makes triggering symbols like ! = standalone accents, @ = Cyrillic, $ = currencies, & = IPA phonetics, * = Greek, ( = enclosed alphanumerics, easier to enter and to integrate into the flow of typing.  Using this system, it is possible to enter relatively easily Greek (Compose + * + S yields Σ) or Cyrillic (Compose + @ + d yields д) or IPA phonetics (Compose + & + Z yields ʒ). The Greek and Cyrillic facilities are not intended for replacing Greek and Cyrillic keyboard drivers, they are just stopgap tools to enter short text passages.

AccentCompose uses standard .XCompose files

AccentCompose is a Windows-only solution. As there is a free and open-source .XCompose-capable software engine for Windows, namely Sam Hocevar’s WinCompose, you will need to install it to use the AccentCompose system on Windows. WinCompose is a separate free product that supports standard .XCompose files. We only supply a custom .XCompose file for use with WinCompose  (or any other compatible Windows Compose Key system). To date, WinCompose is the only viable option. See: http://wincompose.info/ and/or https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose