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National Language Support Guide and Reference

Greek Input Method (GIM)

The Greek Input Method (GIM) is similar to the Single-Byte Input Method (SIM), but handles both Latin and Greek character sets, by providing two layers or states of keyboard mappings, which correspond to the two character sets.

The keyboard is initially in the Latin input state. However, if the left-shift key is pressed while the left-alt key is held down, the keyboard is put in the Greek input state. The keyboard can be returned to the Latin state by pressing the right-shift key, while the left-alt key is held down. These are locking shift keys, because the state is locked when they are pressed.

While in the Greek state, the input method recognizes the following diacritical characters and valid subsequent characters for diacritical composing as shown in the following table:

Greek Composing Characters
Keysym Valid Composing Characters
dead_acute uppercase and lowercase: alpha, epsilon, eta, iota, omicron, upsilon, omega
dead_diaeresis uppercase and lowercase: iota, upsilon
dead_accentdiaeresis lowercase only: iota, upsilon

In the Latin state, there are no composing diacriticals, and the keys shown in the table above are treated as simple graphic characters.

The Greek and Single-Byte Input Methods also differ in their handling of illegal diacritical composing sequences. In such cases, the GIM beeps and returns no characters. The SIM does not beep and returns both the diacritical character and a graphic character associated with the invalid key.

Note: The Alt-Graphic (right-alt) key can be used to generate additional characters within each keyboard state.

Keymap

The following keymap is supported on GIM:

Keysyms

The GIM uses the keysyms in the XK_LATIN1, XK_GREEK, and XK_MISCELLANY groups.

The following reserved keysyms are unique to the input method of this system.

XK_dead_acute 0x180000b4
XK_dead_grave 0x18000060
XK_dead_circumflex 0x1800005e
XK_dead_diaeresis 0x180000a8
XK_dead_tilde 0x1800007e
XK_dead_caron 0x180001b7
XK_dead_breve 0x180001a2
XK_dead_doubleacute 0x180001bd
XK_dead_degree 0x180000b0
XK_dead_abovedot 0x180001ff
XK_dead_macron 0x180000af
XK_dead_cedilla 0x180000b8
XK_dead_ogonek 0x180001b2
XK_dead_accentdiaeresis 0x180007ae

Modifiers

The following modifiers are supported on GIM:

ShiftMask 0x01
LockMask 0x02
ControlMask 0x04
Mod1Mask (Left-Alt) 0x08
Mod2Mask (Right-Alt) 0x10

The following internal modifier is supported on GIM:

Greek Layer 0x20

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