Questions[unicode-entry](ubuntu)

I greatly dislike inputing unicode symbols by their code numbers. Usually, the way I input these characters is by using Ctrl+Shift+U then typing the code and pressing enter. For example, λ is 'u03BB', I, recently, discovered that I can obtain it by typing 'ulambda', which is amazing. Unfortunately, this doesn't give what I expect many times. For example 'upi' gives ? and not π. I was not able to find a table of symbols by their names, so I discover them by trial and error.

I greatly prefer typing the symbol name over its code,

Is there such a table giving the name to charater mapping when using Ctrl+Shift+U available?

Is it possible to make Ctrl+Shift+U give me π when I type 'upi'?

I'm using Finnish keyboard layout which maps AltGr+Space to non-breaking space (NBSP, U+00A0). I'm happy with this in general but I find that I often accidentally write NBSP instead of normal space after pipe "|" symbol (written with AltGr+< with Finnish keyboard layout) while using bash command line. I guess this is caused by the fact that I need to hold AltGr while typing the pipe and release it before hitting space. And when I have bad timing for the release of AltGr I end up with invisible typo on the command line and error messages such as

 grep: command not found

which looks pretty similar to

grep: command not found

which makes this issue a bit hard to notice on the first time.

I know that I can disable NBSP but I would prefer disabling it (having AltGr+Space to produce regular space) only after pipe character, or if that's not possible, always on the bash command line or readline level. Is there any simple way to do this without modifying source code of bash, readline or my terminal emulator (gnome-terminal)?

Another good solution would be to configure NBSP to be somehow visible on the command line, e.g. replaced with another character (say U+2423 ␣) for rendering only.

The title pretty much sums it up: where is this nifty functionality baked in, so I can report any bug I may encounter in it?

In Mac OS X there are ways to input punctuation marks by combination of some keystrokes. For example, Alt + ; inputs a precomposed ellipsis character (…, U+2026). Alt + [ opens a curly double quote character (“, U+201C). Is there any way to input such punctuation marks in simple combination of keystrokes in Ubuntu?

The following is a list of characters I want to use:

• ‘ (U+2018): Single quote opening
• ’ (U+2019): Single quote closing
• “ (U+201C): Double quote opening
• ” (U+201D): Double quote closing
• … (U+2026): Precomposed ellipsis
• — (U+2014): Em dash
• – (U+2013): En dash

The title pretty much says it all: how can I type Unicode characters - specifically the em-dash —?