how to input Eszett ('ß')?

how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Tom Roche]

[Text-mode table enclosed: best viewed in monospace font.]

I'm currently running GNU Emacs 24.0.91.1 with a US English locale,
and use `C-x 8` (`M-x ucs-insert`) fairly often, mostly successfully.
But for 'ß', 

I tried                                      and got
-------------------------------------------  -------------------
C-x 8 ss                                     's'
C-x 8 RET tsett                              error
C-x 8 RET eszett                             error
C-x 8 RET TAB, then searching *Completions*  found nothing 

finally, following a wikipedia lookup (from which I could have
just copied the damn thing :-)

C-x 8 00DF                                   success, but I'll
                                             never remember that

How easiest to get this character on a non-German keyboard?

TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com>

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Memnon Anon]

Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com> writes:

> C-x 8 00DF                                   success, but I'll
>                                              never remember that

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

> How easiest to get this character on a non-German keyboard?

If you want to use german chars like ä, ü, ö, or ß,
the easiest way I found to use "toggle-input-method" (C-\).

For me, this toggles between nil and "german-postfix", which I 
found to be very convenient.

Input ß typing sz.

More /info/ here:

     (info "(emacs) Select Input Method") <-"C-x C-e" here

hth
Memnon

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com>
> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:24:29 -0500
> 
> How easiest to get this character on a non-German keyboard?

C-x 8 RET *SHARP*S TAB TAB

The official name of this character is "LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S".

RE: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Drew Adams]

 > I'm currently running GNU Emacs 24.0.91.1 with a US English locale,
> and use `C-x 8` (`M-x ucs-insert`) fairly often, mostly successfully.
> But for 'ß', 
> 
> I tried                                      and got
> -------------------------------------------  -------------------
> C-x 8 ss                                     's'
> C-x 8 RET tsett                              error
> C-x 8 RET eszett                             error
> C-x 8 RET TAB, then searching *Completions*  found nothing 
> 
> finally, following a wikipedia lookup (from which I could have
> just copied the damn thing :-)
> 
> C-x 8 00DF                                   success, but I'll
>                                              never remember that
> How easiest to get this character on a non-German keyboard?

I'm no expert on Unicode or German, to put it mildly. ;-)

The official name you are looking for is `LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S'.  (Don't
ask me why.)  So if you can remember that one (!) then you can do `C-x 8 RET
latin small letter sharp s'.  Completion is available, thankfully.

But you might also have a look at this library:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/ucs-cmds.el

It gives you an easy way to create commands to insert specific characters such
as this.  And you can of course rename the commands.  By default, the name of
the command to insert this char would be `latin-small-letter-sharp-s'.

The library provides a macro, to which you pass a regexp string that matches the
char names that you want to create commands for.  If you wanted just one
command, for this char, then you could do this:

(ucs-make-commands "latin small letter sharp s")

Then you can rename the command, if you like.

If you wanted a command for each latin character, you could do this:

(ucs-make-commands "latin")

And so on.

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 30.11.2011 um 19:08 schrieb Drew Adams:

> The official name you are looking for is `LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S'.  (Don't
> ask me why.)

Kaserne means casern (or Fasan and pheasant or fast and fast) – here we have pronounced normal LATIN SMALL LETTER S.

The German Mast sounds like must – with some sharply pronounced LATIN SMALL LETTER S.
Fass (barrel) is pronounced like fuzz – if the zeds would be s.
Maß (some kind of measure) is pronounced a bit like ma, Mars, marsh.

LATIN SMALL LETTER S, ß, makes the vowel before ß sound long while ss makes it short. In the new orthography of D, A, CH (or DE, AT, CH).

--
Greetings

  Pete      <\
             _\     O  _
            |o \  _\\_/-\='
_____________(_)|-(_)  (_)___________________________________

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hi,

if you have to type a lot of German characters, you can use a German
input method.  E.g. try

  C-x RET C-\ german-prefix RET

then you can use "a to get ä or "s for ß etc.


- Michael.

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[ken]

On 11/30/2011 08:04 PM Michael Heerdegen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> if you have to type a lot of German characters, you can use a German
> input method.  E.g. try
> 
>   C-x RET C-\ german-prefix RET
> 
> then you can use "a to get ä or "s for ß etc.
> 
> 
> - Michael.
> 

Thanks, Michael.  Great thing.  But then how does one then return to the 
previous input method?

Note: when I do Mx- describe-input-method, the minibuffer prompt says

Describe input method (default, current choice):

If I then hit RET, I get Debugger telling me "No input method is 
activated now".

The buffer I'm doing this in (if it matters) is utf-8 encoded.  This 
emacs version is 21.4.1-- yes, old, but the latest distributed in 
RH/CentOS 5.7 (which is, yes, another issue... for another time), and 
AFAIK, uncustomized from that distribution.

tnx++,
ken

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:24:26 -0500
> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
> Cc: michael_heerdegen@web.de
> 
> Thanks, Michael.  Great thing.  But then how does one then return to the 
> previous input method?

To previous input method or to no input method at all?

If the former "C-u C-\ INPUT-METHOD RET" will switch INPUT-METHOD on.

If the latter, just C-\ will switch off the currently active input
method.

> Note: when I do Mx- describe-input-method, the minibuffer prompt says
> 
> Describe input method (default, current choice):
> 
> If I then hit RET, I get Debugger telling me "No input method is 
> activated now".
> 
> The buffer I'm doing this in (if it matters) is utf-8 encoded.

The buffer encoding has nothing to do with input method.  An input
method is a way to generate characters that are absent from your
keyboard, by typing combinations of existing characters.  Buffer
encoding is how the text will be encoded when written to a disk file
or sent to another process.

Re: how to input Eszett ('ß')?

[Michael Heerdegen]

ken <gebser@mousecar.com> writes:

> Thanks, Michael.  Great thing.  But then how does one then return to
> the previous input method?
>
> Note: when I do Mx- describe-input-method, the minibuffer prompt says
>
> Describe input method (default, current choice):
>
> If I then hit RET, I get Debugger telling me "No input method is
> activated now".

You obviously started with no input method active (that is the default,
I think).  That's why `describe-input-method' gave an error.  If you
have selected your input method with

   `C-x <RET> C-\ METHOD <RET>'

it is also activated.  `C-\' toggles between enabled and disabled.  So,
to return to the previous state, just hit C-\.


BTW, this is described in the Emacs manual, under

  International > Input Methods

and

  International > Select Input Method


-- Michael.