Need the "degree symbol" is now [Solved]

[AZgl1800]

many thanks, [solved]

Once you consider this to be solved, please mark it as such in the title of the first post in the topic. Thanks!

I did that at the time, but then better solutions came along, and I did not want to stop the great suggestions.

Once I have this "AutoKey" application figured out, I will mark it in the first post again.

I am not interested in the Character Map solution, too involved, I can use the keyboard shortcuts suggested fairly easy, but that is a convoluted mess of six characters to get the one symbol... all I want is ALT-o
not have to use Control-Shift-u-0-0-b-0 combination of keys.

[magnus7]

You need quick and reliable access to degree symbol and Unicode, Character Map, KCharSelect, Compose Key or AutoKey doesn't provide it.
Any key can be easily remapped. It's true that modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) should be left alone, they are too important to mess with. But every keyboard has Scroll Lock key, which is disabled by default in most keyboard layouts. It sits there and gathers dust.
Tell me the name of your keyboard layout and I'll write you a command which remap Scroll Lock (or any other key) to degree symbol.

[rene]

not have to use Control-Shift-u-0-0-b-0 combination of keys.

If AltGr-Shift-: will do you should as mentioned just use the "English (international AltGr dead keys)" layout; gets you quite a few additional typable characters as well.

[rickNS]

I too am one who misses the alt codes from windows, in particular for me was ¼, ½, ¢, among a few others.
If you only need the one for degree then remembering the U code for degree is not so bad, but the U code, "ctrl shift U...B0 space", is not that convenient eh?

Since you still looking for other solutions. what I did in Linux was...in Libre office writer > insert > special character (they seem easier to find here than in the much larger character map (as mentioned earlier)) insert the special characters that I use some half dozen or so. Then copy those to a small text file named "spclchr", save that, copy / paste from then on from that small text file. Not elegant, but small price to pay for FREEDOM. This probably not suitable for your use, but for someone who uses a few different ones this is not a bad way...is it ?

[all41]

ClipIt clipboard manager provides quick access to often used symbols

[sdibaja]

ClipIt clipboard manager provides quick access to often used symbols

is there a way to "pin" frequently used strings?

glipper is also pretty good, I use both... I don't know why but they don't store all the same.

[all41]

ClipIt clipboard manager provides quick access to often used symbols

is there a way to "pin" frequently used strings?

glipper is also pretty good, I use both... I don't know why but they don't store all the same.

I pretty much use clipit for this purpose only. After I store the symbols I place clipit in the offline mode.

[AZgl1800]

You need quick and reliable access to degree symbol and Unicode, Character Map, KCharSelect, Compose Key or AutoKey doesn't provide it.
Any key can be easily remapped. It's true that modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) should be left alone, they are too important to mess with. But every keyboard has Scroll Lock key, which is disabled by default in most keyboard layouts. It sits there and gathers dust.
Tell me the name of your keyboard layout and I'll write you a command which remap Scroll Lock (or any other key) to degree symbol.

It appears to be the common US standard qwerty keyboard with the number pad on the right side.
inxi -F does not provide the keyboard info.

I never use Scroll Lock, so that is a good key to remap.
the machine is an ASUS TP500L

this link shows a lot of pictures of the keyboard
http://www.laptopinventory.com/Laptop_M ... /TP500L/KB

inxi -xx -M
Machine: System: ASUSTeK (portable) product: TP500LA v: 1.0
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: TP500LA v: 1.0
Bios: American Megatrends v: TP500LA.203 date: 06/11/2014

[BenTrabetere]

Would you mind showing how you created that AutoKey phrase to generate the degree symbol (°), and assigned it a hotkey of Alt+o and a keyboard shortcut of *o.

Here are the the steps to create the phrase and assign it the Alt+o hotkey shortcut.

AutoKey minimizes to the Notification area - the icon is either a light A or a dark A. For me it almost always is near the Update Manager icon. Click on the A icon and select Show Main Window. (The keyboard shortcut is <super>+k.)

First step, from the main menu go to Edit >Preferences, and from the General tab and tick the Automatically start Autokey at Login box.

To create a Phrase....
1. On the Toolbar click New and select New Subfolder. Give it a name like Symbols. (This step is optional, but it help to keep things organized.)
2. Select the Symbols folder, and select New > Phrase. A create name dialog will open, and give the phrase a name. Here I would use Degree or Degree Symbol. Click okay.
3. Select the Degree phrase. In the phrase window you will see “Enter phrase contents.” Delete “Enter phrase contents”, press and release Ctrl+Shift+u, and when the u enter 00b0. The ° symbol should appear.
4. Click Save.
5. Under the Phrase Settings look for Abbreviations, Hotkey, and Window filter. Select Hotkey: Set to open Set Hotkey dialog, select Press to Set, and then press Alt o at the same time. Click Okay and then click Save.
6. The Degree Symbol phrase and its hotkey should appear in the file manager. And it should be ready to use.

Let me know if you need screenshots.

[AZgl1800]

The temp here now is 43°F

wallah! it works like a champ. I added the 'F' in the phrase, saves me one more character

Thank you , thank you.....

Now I am empowered to create some more things I want.

Very much appreciate your time to give in detail what I needed to get started with AutoKey.


Problem is now truly [Solved]

[phd21]

Hi AZgl1500

To "BenTrabetere", good suggestion and instructions for using AutoKey. AutoKey is one of my favorite applications that I use literally every day. I have it in my startup applications so that it is always on and available. There are other good posts on using AutoKey in this forum as well. FYI: On my KDE system for these, I had to use a "Paste Using" option other than keyboard, I used "clipboard shift insert". The only thing you need to be careful about is not to use a key combination that is already used by your system, sometimes you have to try various key combos.

There is nothing wrong or slow about copying and pasting any character you want from a character map or character map application like KCharSelect. I use KCharSelect to locate and determine what the "U" unicode for any special character is, If you noticed from my screenshots, check upper right, there are specific "u" codes for the degree symbol (U+00B0), and separate codes for ℃ (U+2103) and ℉ (U+2109)

+1 for using the "Scroll Lock" as a compose key, if your keyboard does not have one already.

AutoKey1.jpg

[BenTrabetere]

Very much appreciate your time to give in detail what I needed to get started with AutoKey.

I am glad it worked. AutoKey is an amazing little program for eliminating repetitive tasks.

“phd1” made a couple of points that need repeating. First, you should use the characters for ℃ and ℉. More importantly, you need to be careful about using a hotkey combination that is used by the system or by applications. It can lead to conflicts and weird results. To avoid this altogether, I rarely use hotkeys with Autokey. Instead, I use an AutoKey Abbreviation as the trigger. An abbreviation is nothing more than a series of keystrokes.

Here are a couple of examples. My street address is 18-characters long, and entering it several times a day is tiresome. I have an AutoKey phrase for it that, and it gets trigger when I enter adr and press Enter or the Space bar. I do a lot of page layout, and I am always entering Lorem ipsum as a dummy text placeholder. I have an AutoKey phrase that spews out the entire text when I enter loremipsum.

There is a trick to setting up an Abbreviation. Steps 1 to 4 are the same, so pick up at....

5. Under the Phrase Settings look for Abbreviations, Hotkey, and Window filter. Select Abbreviation: Set to open the Set Abbreviation dialog.
6. On the left side of the dialog you will see an Abbreviations window, and under the window are Add and Remove buttons.
7. Click Add, and a box will open in the Abbreviations window. This is where you enter the Abbreviation you want to use. I would use *oc and *of for ℃ and ℉, but sdc and sdf (a mnemonic for Set Degree C/F) would work, too. Neither set of keystroke are likely to be used naturally.

... Now for the tricky part ...

8. After you enter the abbreviation, click somewhere in the Abbreviations window. If you do it correctly, that box will change color. It turns green for me.
9. On the right side of the dialog window are various settings. I almost always use Trigger on: All non-word, and tick the Remove typed abbreviation box. I rarely use the other tick boxes.

Maybe one day I will do a proper tutorial for AutoKey.

[AZgl1800]

Thank you for that added bit on autoKey

My first inclination was to use ALT-o but that triggered "Options" in a lot of places

so I experimented to see if ALT-E ruined anything, and it don't, so I used that.

the example already had 'a d r' without the spaces set up for home address, so I just replaced the example for my own. Love it, because I am doing that a lot too.

I would be highly appreciative of a more explanatory document on how to use AutoKey, and I betcha that I am not alone in that regard.

I will send you a PayPal for a box of donuts and coffee if you will do that

again, many thanks for helping me out here.
John
Indian Territory, USA
OkieLand that is....

[phd21]

Hi AZgl1500,

FYI-1: You often need to click save in Autokey before new shortcuts are active and usable. Sometimes you may need to restart autokey.

FYI-2: It is easy to test a shortcut or abbreviation that you want to use as an AutoKey shortcut, by opening any text editor, or a post or reply in this forum, and try the shortcut or abbreviation before entering in it AutoKey to make sure there are no conflicts. You can always change the trigger later if need be.

FYI-3: There are two versions of AutoKey, the original in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM) and a new one that has been "forked" from the original using Python 3. I have been using the original one for years now.

Tip: You can use your own folders for storing your AutoKey phrases and shortcuts rather than use the default hidden folders in your home folder, select new folder or new subfolder. I use two different Linux Mint systems, so I created folders underneath my Home Documents folder to store these which automatically get backed up when I backup. This is great for use with multiple computers, dual booting, etc... I also use a cloud storage provider to sync these folders with any changes or new additions that I make, so they become available on all my systems (and they get backed up this way too); I use this method to sync and backup my CherryTree notes and KeePassXC password Database as well.

AutoKey : Linux Utility for Text Substitution , Hotkeys and Desktop Automation
https://saravananthirumuruganathan.word ... utomation/

Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.
https://code.google.com/archive/p/autokey/

Autokey (KDE & GTK) - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=240058&hilit=autokey

Inserting Date & Time into any text file - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=90&t=238132&hilit=autokey

[Solved] Python 3.5 for Autokey-py3 is installed but other software doesn't see it - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=247377&hilit=autokey

Swiftkey for Linux - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=258046&hilit=autokey

Hope this helps ...

AutoKey2.jpg

AutoKey3.jpg

AutoKey4.jpg

[AZgl1800]

again,
Thank you,
I will put those to use.