Feature request: Differentiating between compose keys

[obskyr]

Currently, WinCompose allows for two different compose keys – but not for differentiating between them. My particular use case is that I'd like to have one general-purpose compose key, and a separate compose key for typing IPA: caps lock for most compositions; § (where ` would be on a North American keyboard) for IPA. In my .XCompose, I imagine it'd look something like this:

# For all compose keys
<Multi_key> <o> <greater> : "♂"
<Multi_key> <less> <o> : "♂"
<Multi_key> <o> <plus> : "♀"
<Multi_key> <plus> <o> : "♀"

# For only the first compose key
<Multi_key_1> <colon> <?> : "¯\\_(ツ)_/¯"

# For only the second compose key
<Multi_key_2> <p> <f> <v> : "ʃ"
<Multi_key_2> <p> <f> <v> : "ʒ"

Allowing multiple different compose keys in this manner would cut down on friction – remove the requirement for an extra keystroke at the beginning – for people who use the compose key for multiple different purposes.

[samhocevar]

I haven’t followed up on this, but it sounds like a good idea, though a bit tricky to implement properly. I will let you know when I start working on it.

[Justin-Maxwell]

IPA is one case, but what if the next person wants a third compose key and we're back to an ever-growing list of keyboard modes and modifier keys again.

(Also, IPA is somewhat unsuited to the compose-key approach in many situations, because people are often typing whole words in IPA, not individual characters.)

My dream is that eventually, we get reasonably uniform standards across compose-key systems across different OSes, and this (different compose keys that go into different modes) makes that harder. That said, I'm mostly just thinking aloud here.

[obskyr]

This isn't incompatible with the existing XCompose standard, but is a superset of it! I don't think “it's a useful feature that other compose key solutions don't have” is a reason not to add something.

As for IPA, this is certainly useful for typing whole words – in fact, typing in a sequence of characters to form a mnemonic is how existing IPA keyboard solutions work.