Status : stable, active

Key Compose

All started with Alex Benenson’s great extension for Firefox, Transliterator. With that writing letters with diacritical marks became fast and easy.

When I met AutoHotkey, my first question was, could I write something similar to Transliterator, but not limited to the browser ? Well, I think yes.

Screenshot

screenshot right after changing the mode

Usage

Once started, KeyCompose just sits in the system tray and waits. Then when you type a key sequence for which a replacement was set, it does its job.

There can be more modes defined and you can change between them :

Action	Change
`Alt`-`Ctrl`-`F2`	next mode
`Alt`-`Ctrl`-`Shift`-`F2`	previous mode
double-click on the tray icon	next mode
click on a mode name in the context menu	that mode

To cancel a replacement, press Shift-Shift before finishing the triggering sequence. ( I mean, press both Shift keys simultaneously. )

In the top part of the context menu there are enumerated the currently defined modes. ( The one with the checkmark is the active one, the one in bold is the mode to which you can change by double-clicking the tray icon. )

The other command, below the list of modes :

Show compose… – displays the list of modes and hotstring definitions for each

Show key compose
Edit compose… – opens the KeyCompose-conf.ahk file in the associated editor
Start automatically – creates or deletes a shortcut to itself in the Startup menu
About… – displays information about itself

Configuration

Sadly the hotstring definition in AutoHotkey accepts only barewords, no variables. So the configuration must be an AutoHotkey script itself.

Anyway, I tried to reduce its format to the minimum, so the configuration not requires programmer skills. Things to keep in mind :

; starts a comment – comments are ignored to the end of their line
#If compose==number starts a mode definition – the following lines until the next similar #If will pertain to that mode
::sequence::character defines a hotstring – each replacement in a separate line

And some explanations on the syntax elements :

The number is the order number of the mode. Not really meaningful, just keep the numbering continuous, starting from 0.
The sequence is the list of keys that needs to be pressed one after the other to trigger the replacement.
The character in this case will be the character to replace with, but actually can be longer string too.

file fragment - KeyCompose-conf.ahk

; Key Compose   version 0.2   february 2013   written by Fehérke
; key compose functionality and more
; configuration file

#If compose==0 ; None

#If compose>=1 ; Diacritical
  ::a'::á ; a with acute
  ::a`::à ; a with grave
  ::a^::â ; a with circumflex
  ::a;::ä ; a with diaeresis
  ::a~::ã ; a with tilde
  ::ae::æ ; ae

The configuration file is also read by KeyCompose to display the definitions in the Show key compose. So better do not add more complex expressions, even if you know AutoHotkey.

With the configuration shipped with the script there are some particularities :

The first mode has no hotstring definition, so it actually turns off the functionality. You may add definitions there too, if you want.
The definitions are cumulative : when mode n is active, all definitions of modes 0..n are available. To change this to restrict each mode to its own definitions only, replace the >= operators to == in the #If directives.

Versions

0.0 - February 2013
- Initial release.
0.1 - February 2013
- Separated the hotstring list into 3 modes : None, Primary, Secondary.
- Key Ctrl-F2 to change the mode.
0.2 - February 2013
- Moved the hotstring definitions into a configuration file.
- New menu command Edit compose….
- Key Alt-Ctrl-F2 to change the mode.
- Key Alt-Ctrl-Shift-F2 to change the mode backward.
0.3 - July 2013
- Key Shift-Shift to cancel a compose.

Plans

A configuration editor combined with CharMap.exe would be great.

Download

You can find the related files on GitHub in my AutoHotkey-script repository’s key-compose directory :