Double tapping the compose key could open an autocomplete-like dropdown

[zommuter]

... wherein one could quickly search for a desired character and directly enter it (similarly to the main window search function but quicker). That would basically turn WinCompose into an IME I guess.

[Rym-]

+1

[ghost]

Sam, I'm interested in working on this one if you're ok with that. If you have any direction / suggestion, I'd be happy to know.

[samhocevar]

I don’t know yet what can be done UX-wise… Here are my problems:

• double tapping is not great because some compose sequences use Compose themselves (e.g. Compose Compose t e l for ☎)
• Compose + arrows is not great because some sequences use the arrow keys
• Compose Tab sounds interesting but it’ll break Alt Tab when the Compose key is Alt
• Compose Enter is a possibility, even if I wanted to reserve this to say “end the current sequence”

Anyway this doesn’t prevent us from working on a proof of concept. I have no idea what kind of popup we can display… is there some way we can detect where on screen the current cursor is? Sounds to me like it’ll require some toolkit-specific code.

[ghost]

A quick look to what could be faisible yields this interesting result :

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/34520/Getting-Caret-Position-Inside-Any-Application

I'll look at that and do a POC, we'll indeed can think about the right method to show the popup later.

Le 16/01/2016 18:21, Sam Hocevar a écrit :

I don’t know yet what can be done UX-wise… Here are my problems:

• double tapping is not great because some compose sequences use Compose themselves (e.g. Compose Compose t e l for ☎)
• Compose + arrows is not great because some sequences use the arrow keys
• Compose Tab sounds interesting but it’ll break Alt Tab when the Compose key is Tab
• Compose Enter is a possibility, even if I wanted to reserve this to say “end the current sequence”

Anyway this doesn’t prevent us from working on a proof of concept. I have no idea what kind of popup we can display… is there some way we can detect where on screen the current cursor is? Sounds to me like it’ll require some toolkit-specific code.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose/issues/38#issuecomment-172232395.

[ChristianKleineidam]

Why can't you change Compose Compose t e l into Compose t e l?

[samhocevar]

@ChristianKleineidam there are 374 rules that start with Compose Compose so this would be pretty invasive, unfortunately. For consistency, I like to have most emoji rules start with Compose Compose. Don’t know the shortcut for the cake emoji 🍰? Well there’s a good chance that it is simply Compose Compose c a k e.

Also there is now Compose Compose f l o p p y for 💾 and this can’t be changed to Compose f l o p p y because Compose f l is already used for the “fl” ligature.

[greywatcher]

I suggest ⊞ Win +⎄ Compose . (Not one after another, but pressing down ⊞ Win and keeping it down while pressing down ⎄ Compose ) Another possibility is ⎄ Compose F1

[zommuter]

I like @greywatcher's idea of holding a second key, but I'd suggest not fixing it (what if someone happens to use ⊞ Win of all potential compose keys?) but rather make is as configurable as the compose key. Of course nowadays an emoji-finder like e.g. GitHub uses it when you press : also heads in this direction, but with WinCompose this would be global 😄

[Porges]

Could do something like hold down Compose?

[eugenesvk]

I'd like to suggest a potentially better chorded cheat sheet approach similar to what I'm using with a Keyboard Maestro app (though a fully searchable database would help in other use cases when you don't even know what to start with, e.g., which compose categories contain your symbol)

The key here is to only show cheat sheet after some time has passed since you pressed the last valid key in a WinCompose sequence. This way

• if you remember the full sequence, you don't get any annoying cheat sheet reminders
• you don't need to remember any separate keybinds (double tap / hold etc), you get automatic help during your regular WinCompose workflow
• only "future" valid sequences are shown, so if you forgot only the last symbol in a sequence, you get a cheat sheet that only shows the valid symbols in that last stage, taking into account all the previous WinCompose keys you've pressed
• no need to press final Enter to confirm a sequence - only valid sequences will be allowed by the way chording works, and if no valid sequences remain, then this compose sequence is executed

For example, ⌘\\ invokes a menu to replace illegal filesystem symbols with their unicode counterparts you could use in file names:

So when you remember that 7 inserts ⸮, you just press it and nothing shows up except for your symbol (last ⌘V in the video is simulated keystroke)

https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose/assets/12956286/4fdb5791-a08b-4b3a-97c7-27c307eb7893

But then if you forgot which key to replace ? with, you invoke the same initial ⌘\\ and wait for a helpful remidner:

https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose/assets/12956286/6d72a3ce-01b0-4bb4-b955-46abb8e4e984