Comment 21 for bug 74360

Running Jaunty 9.04, fully updated as of Monday 18 May 2009.

The Gnome project's decision to implement an unannounced (to the end user) separate compose key list shows mind-bogglingly poor judgment.

As Jan Minář notes, compose is a powerful mechanism, and quite simple and easy to use as well. Gnome's alterations to this mechanism are confusing and counterproductive, and the GTK compose key list is incomplete in addition to being needlessly inconsistent with the original X11 compose key lists.

For instance, Gnome for some unfathomable reason decided not to implement a/A or o/O with a macron. Following the X11 compose sequences for these, <Compose key> + - (hyphen) or _ (underscore) + a/A or o/O instead produces the same output as <Compose key> + ~ (tilde) + a/A or o/O. *Why* in the devil's briefcase did anyone think it makes sense to remove functionality in order to duplicate an already-extant separate key sequence? This oversight and apparent arrogance actually angers me.

This would not be such an issue if it were possible to edit the compose key lists used by GTK -- but although the X11 lists can be edited, this is apparently *not* possible for GTK:

     "The ComposeKey sequences used by Gnome to enter special characters are hard coded into the program."
     (from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GtkComposeTable)

*Why* hard-code these sequences? Being able to edit them is very useful, and this is precisely why these sequences are editable for X11. Yet Gnome seems to be following the same "we know better than you" mentality evinced by the much-despised Microsoft.

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Setting GTK_IM_MODULE="xim" does *NOT* work usefully on my machine. It does prevent the Gnome compose key sequences from working, but it also means that my compose key settings in System -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layout Options are also ignored. Due to my keyboard (a Dell multimedia version, no right Win key, for instance), I therefore cannot seem to find the X11 compose key, and setting the XkbOption as described at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ComposeKey does not seem to work (I do log out and restart the X server each time I change settings, so that's not the issue). Consequently, I can either use Gnome's incomplete and confusing compose key options, or none at all. This is completely unacceptable.

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I thought the whole point of the freedesktop.org initiative was to *unify* desktop functionality. Gnome's go-it-alone approach with how the compose key works is incredibly frustrating. I will definitely be posting to bugzilla.gnome.org.