XCompose dead keys

[pimarti]

Hello, I'd like to define dead keys on my layout. I found here a way to do it purely in Kanata, but I find it very cumbersome. I have to 1) define all possible sequences and give them a name, and 2) separately map each sequence to the desired output. Ideally I'd like to reuse the default XCompose sequences. I tried the following:

(defalias
  ´_ (macro ralt ')
  `_ (macro ralt `)
)

Where I run kanata on top of xkb layout us with option compose:ralt. Before running kanata, the key sequence ralt ' e will output é, but when kanata is running, typing the key mapped to @´_ outputs ', and typing e afterwards outputs a separate e.

[jtroo]

Try adding delays. Some desktop environments don't handle rapid events very well.

[pimarti]

I tried, it still doesn't work but I just noticed something. When kanata is running and I try using the macro in Firefox it brings up the menu bar like when I press left alt without kanata. I looked it up with xev, and it turns out that without kanata the right alt key actually sends the Multi_key keysym, whereas kanata's ralt sends Alt_R.

I looked it up in the OsCode enum but couldn't find it. xev says it has keycode 108 but in OsCode that's KEY_DOWN, which xev says has keycode 116 so I'm not sure what is the correspondence.

[jtroo]

Is your xkb configuration for XCompose applied to the kanata device? Probably only applied to physical kb and not kanata.

[pimarti]

Thank you, that was the issue! If I rerun setxkbmap after starting kanata it works.