http://norman.walsh.name/2003/09/29/xmlchars 6 90 2003-09-29 $Date: 2005-09-11 10:27:02 -0400 (Sun, 11 Sep 2005) $ Norman Walsh 2003 Norman Walsh Inserting Unicode characters into emacs. Input methods like this greatly reduce the need for entity declarations, the last remaining holdouts from my life with DTDs. rlr at panix.com Some people do their laundry in emacs, but I find typing ^C-^X-^W-q-L-TT to add the fabric softener to be a bit cumbersome. Tim Bray followed up (in a sense) to my essay on moving beyond DTDs with some nifty emacs code for inserting special Unicode Unicode characters directly into a buffer. Input methods like this greatly reduce the need for entity declarations, the last remaining holdouts from my life with DTDs. Who needs: <!DOCTYPE article [ <!ENTITY euro "&#x20AC;"> ]> And the corresponding &euro;, if you can just stuff a € into your buffer! I read Tim’s essay and decided that he was right about some things, like “smart quotes,” but he didn’t do it quite the way I would have. So I banged away for a bit and coded up XML Characters, my own solution. XML Characters provides four functions: smart-double-quote This function, which I bind to " in nxml-mode, inserts the appropriate double quote. Called after a space, newline, or >, it inserts a left double quote. Called after a double quote, it cycles through the three possible quote styles: left, straight, or right. Called anywhere else, it inserts a right double quote. Inside a start tag, it always inserts just a vanilla ". smart-single-quote I bind this to ' in nxml-mode and it does just what you think it does. insert-xml-char This function inserts a named XML character. For example, (insert-xml-char "sect") inserts a section mark (§). The set of names is maintained in a couple of associative lists, so you can easily tweak them. Called with no arguments, it pops up a menu, somewhat like Tim’s code. I bind this to C-t c because I have a pretty extensive Ctrl-T map that I’m used to using. shortcut-xml-char Where Tim seems content to have a selection of accented characters in a menu, I decided I wanted more complete and uniform access to all the ISO Latin 1 accented characters (plus a few other things; there’s another list, so you’re free to tweak). For my function, I chose to read two more keystrokes and compose the approprate character that way. I bind this to C-t e at the moment. So, for example, I can type C-t e e ' to insert “e acute”. Or C-t e $ y to insert a yen symbol. Thanks, Tim! I didn’t know how much I needed these functions before I wrote them. In the course of writing one essay, I’ve decided I wouldn’t want to live without them.