MAN.9FRONT.ORG RTFM


     KEYBOARD(6)                                           KEYBOARD(6)

     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.  On the PC and some other machines, the key labeled
          Caps Lock acts as an additional control key.

          The delete character (0x7F) may be generated by a different
          key, one near the extreme upper right of the keyboard.  On
          the Next it is the key labeled `*' (not the asterisk above
          the 8).  On the SLC and Sparcstation 2, delete is labeled
          Num Lock (the key above Backspace labeled Delete functions
          as an additional backspace key).  On the other keyboards,
          the key labeled Del or Delete generates the delete charac-
          ter.

          The view character (0x80), used by rio(1), acme(1), and
          sam(1), causes windows to scroll forward.  It is generally
          somewhere near the lower right of the main key area.  The
          scroll character is generated by the VIEW key on the Gnot,
          the Alt Graph key on the SLC, and the arrow key ↓ on the
          other terminals.  As a convenience for sloppy typists, some
          programs interpret → and ← keys, which lie on either side of
          ↓, as view keys as well.  The arrow key ↑ scrolls backward.

          Characters in Plan 9 are runes (see utf(6)). Any 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 lower case `x' and up
          to six hexadecimal characters (digits and `a' to `f') fol-
          lowed by a semicolon (if the sequence is less than six dig-
          its long) to type a single rune with the value represented
          by the typed number.  There are shorthands for many charac-
          ters, comprising the compose key followed by a two- or
          three-character sequence.  There are several rules guiding
          the design of the sequences, as illustrated by the following
          examples.  The full list is too long to repeat here, but is
          contained in the file `/lib/keyboard' in a format suitable
          for grep(1) or look(1).

     KEYBOARD(6)                                           KEYBOARD(6)

               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
               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.

     FILES
          /lib/keyboard   sorted table of characters and keyboard

     KEYBOARD(6)                                           KEYBOARD(6)

                          sequences

     SEE ALSO
          intro(1), ascii(1), tcs(1), acme(1), rio(1), sam(1),
          cons(3), utf(6)