Dead Character List

The list of all dead characters defined for the current layout is displayed in the Currently defined dead characters list in the Dead character editor. These characters can be assigned to a "virtual key / modifier" combination using the Dead key list of the Key mapping editor popup dialog.

The easiest way to create a dead character is through the Add standard dead chars dialog, which is opened by clicking the Add standard dead char button. Here you can select the "standard" dead characters you want to add - these are the characters that appear regularly in various layouts with a common list of transformation pairs.

For example, a standard character 02DA (˚ Ring Above) defines five transformation pairs:

Original	Transformed
' ' (0020)	'˚' (02DA)
'A' (0041)	'Å' (00C5)
'U' (0055)	'Ů' (016E)
'a' (0061)	'å' (00E5)
'u' (0075)	'ů' (016F)

As you can see, the standard transformations for 02DA (Ring Above) consist of all letters which exist in the "ring above" diacritic form, plus the transformation for the "space" character which makes it possible to enter the "Ring Above" character itself. This logic applies to all other "standard" dead characters. It might or might not be the desired result: whenever you add a "standard" dead character to your layout, you should review the auto-generated transformation list and make sure it contains the transformations you need.

Another way to create a dead character is to drag a desired character from the Unicode palette, and drop it onto the Currently defined dead characters list. If the character dropped is one of the "standard" characters, the effect will be the same as if it had been selected from the Add standard dead chars dialog - the transformation list will be automatically filled with the standard transformations.

For other, non-standard characters, the transformation list initially contains only one generic mapping of space into the dead character itself. Other more specific mappings must to be added manually.

Button Delete removes the current dead character from the layout - it disappears from the dead characters list together with all the transformation pairs which belonged to it. If the dead character was mapped to a virtual key prior to deletion, the same Unicode character will remain mapped to the same key, but the mapping loses its "dead" property - it is converted to a "normal" mapping.

Finally, button Import dead table from another layout opens up a dialog from which you can "borrow" another layout's dead table and import it into current layout. Buttons Import from file and Export to file allow you to import / export dead table to a text file.

Dead character list