RE: Entering Unicode characters

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > "C-x 8 RET" should give you any unicode character by name.
> 
> That is useless in practice, because it requires users to know these
> long and often obscure names.  When I wanted to do this, I was unable
> to do it with C-x 8.  I was totally stumped!  All I could do was try
> to find a file which had the character I wanted.
> 
> We need a way to enter any Unicode character that is EASY to use
> and does not require using its official name.

It's a _lot_ easier if completion matching is at least substring,
and much easier still if you can combine multiple input patterns
to match (e.g. multiple substrings).

But yes, some of the char names are hard to imagine (and thus
match).  It would help if a user could narrow the choices by
specifying a character category, for example.

Even just providing a set of insertion commands for different
categories could help.  E.g., if you know you want a math symbol
then you complete against only math-symbol names.  Or if you want
a Greek character then you complete only against their names.

Emacs could at least provide such a set of insertion commands,
and let users decide when and whether to bind some of them.
`C-x 8 RET' is a very wide brush to paint with.  It is a great
command, IMO, but its power and generality can limit its usefulness
for quick insertion of a char from a limited set of chars.