1 .TH KEYBOARD 7
2 .SH NAME
3 keyboard \- how to type characters
4 .SH DESCRIPTION
5 Keyboards are idiosyncratic.
6 It should be obvious how to type ordinary
7 .SM ASCII
8 characters,
9 backspace, tab, escape, and newline.
10 In Plan 9, the key labeled
11 .B Return
12 or
13 .B Enter
14 generates a newline
15 .RB ( 0x0A );
16 if there is a key labeled
17 .B Line
18 .BR Feed ,
19 it generates a carriage return
20 .RB ( 0x0D );
21 Plan 9 eschews CRLFs.
22 All control characters are typed in the usual way;
23 in particular, control-J is a line feed and control-M a carriage return.
24 .\" On the PC and some other machines, the key labeled
25 .\" .B Caps
26 .\" .B Lock
27 .\" acts as an additional control key.
28 .\" .PP
29 .\" The delete character
30 .\" .RB ( 0x7F )
31 .\" may be generated by a different key,
32 .\" one near the extreme upper right of the keyboard.
33 .\" On the Next, it is the key labeled
34 .\" .L *
35 .\" (not the asterisk above the 8).
36 .\" On the SLC and Sparcstation 2, delete is labeled
37 .\" .B Num
38 .\" .B Lock
39 .\" (the key above
40 .\" .B Backspace
41 .\" labeled
42 .\" .B Delete
43 .\" functions as an additional backspace key).
44 .\" On the other keyboards, the key labeled
45 .\" .B Del
46 .\" or
47 .\" .B Delete
48 .\" generates the delete character.
49 .PP
50 The down arrow,
51 used by
52 .IR 9term (1),
53 .IR acme (1),
54 and
55 .IR sam (1),
56 causes windows to scroll forward.
57 The up arrow scrolls backward.
58 .PP
59 Characters in Plan 9 are runes (see
60 .IR utf (7)).
61 Any 16-bit rune can be typed using a compose key followed by several
62 other keys.
63 The compose key is also generally near the lower right of the main key area:
64 the
65 .B NUM PAD
66 key on the Gnot, the
67 .B Alternate
68 key on the Next, the
69 .B Compose
70 key on the SLC, the
71 .B Option
72 key on the Magnum, and either
73 .B Alt
74 key on the PC.
75 After typing the compose key, type a capital
76 .L X
77 and exactly four hexadecimal characters (digits and
78 .L a
79 to
80 .LR f )
81 to type a single rune with the value represented by
82 the typed number.
83 There are shorthands for many characters, comprising
84 the compose key followed by a two- or three-character sequence.
85 There are several rules guiding the design of the sequences, as
86 illustrated by the following examples.
87 The full list is too long to repeat here, but is contained in the file
88 .L \*9/lib/keyboard
89 in a format suitable for
90 .IR grep (1)
91 or
92 .IR look (1).
93 .IP
94 A repeated symbol gives a variant of that symbol, e.g.,
95 .B ??
96 yields ¿\|.
97 .IP
98 .SM ASCII
99 digraphs for mathematical operators give the corresponding operator, e.g.,
100 .B <=
101 yields ≤.
102 .IP
103 Two letters give the corresponding ligature, e.g.,
104 .B AE
105 yields Æ.
106 .IP
107 Mathematical and other symbols are given by abbreviations for their names, e.g.,
108 .B pg
109 yields ¶.
110 .IP
111 Chess pieces are given by a
112 .B w
113 or
114 .B b
115 followed by a letter for the piece
116 .RB ( k
117 for king,
118 .B q
119 for queen,
120 .B r
121 for rook,
122 .B n
123 for knight,
124 .B b
125 for bishop, or
126 .B p
127 for pawn),
128 e.g.,
129 .B wk
130 for a white king.
131 .IP
132 Greek letters are given by an asterisk followed by a corresponding latin letter,
133 e.g.,
134 .B *d
135 yields δ.
136 .IP
137 Cyrillic letters are given by an at sign followed by a corresponding latin letter or letters,
138 e.g.,
139 .B @ya
140 yields я.
141 .IP
142 Script letters are given by a dollar sign followed by the corresponding regular letter,
143 e.g.,
144 .B $F
145 yields ℱ.
146 .IP
147 A digraph of a symbol followed by a letter gives the letter with an accent that looks like the symbol, e.g.,
148 .B ,c
149 yields ç.
150 .IP
151 Two digits give the fraction with that numerator and denominator, e.g.,
152 .B 12
153 yields ½.
154 .IP
155 The letter s followed by a character gives that character as a superscript, e.g.,
156 .B s1
157 yields ⁱ.
158 These characters are taken from the Unicode block 0x2070; the 1, 2, and 3
159 superscripts in the Latin-1 block are available by using a capital S instead of s.
160 .IP
161 Sometimes a pair of characters give a symbol related to the superimposition of the characters, e.g.,
162 .B cO
163 yields ©.
164 .IP
165 A mnemonic letter followed by $ gives a currency symbol, e.g.,
166 .B l$
167 yields £.
168 .PP
169 Note the difference between ß (ss) and µ (micron) and
170 the Greek β and μ.
171 .SH FILES
172 .TP
173 .B \*9/lib/keyboard
174 sorted table of characters and keyboard sequences
175 .PD
176 .SH "SEE ALSO"
177 .IR intro (1),
178 .IR ascii (1),
179 .IR tcs (1),
180 .IR 9term (1),
181 .IR acme (1),
182 .IR sam (1),
183 .IR utf (7)