Problem "<dead-acute> is undefined" appearing when typing Greek stress ( ' )

Question

I started using Emacs and I wrote a text in Greek. The problem is that the stress that is used upon some letters (ό, ύ, ί, ύ) doesn't work!

It is usually inserted by pressing the ; (I mean by pressing the key next to L) and then the letter upon which will be inserted. That's standard for a Greek keyboard. When I press the ; it says:

<dead-acute> is undefined. 

C-h c ; says the same thing.

What can I do to be able to use this key?

It works in other applications, such as a browser. I use Ubuntu 14.04 and I installed its emacs package (Emacs 24.3.1).

Answer 1

Try adding (require 'iso-transl) to your .emacs file.

Answer 2

After extensive search and experimentation I found a way to succeed using the stress. Also it must be noted that is not the best way (technically it doesn't solve the problem but you get what you want). I used the following key bind command for every letter that uses a stress:

(global-set-key (kbd "<dead-acute> α") "ά")

(global-set-key (kbd "<dead-acute> ε") "έ")

etc...

Suffice to say that if anyone finds a better way is welcome to share it with us as this is obviously just a compromise.

Answer 3

Tryto launch emacs with :

env XMODIFIERS= emacs

This runs Emacs without the XMODIFIERS environment variable set, which disables input methods for just that program.

Answer 4

Override the language switching of operating system and use MULE.

In Emacs, press C-\. It asks for an input method.

Type greek and then switch languages with C-\.

Answer 5

If your operating system or Emacs's interface to it somehow passes dead keys as such instead of processing them, you can translate the dead key combinations in Emacs itself. Use input-decode-map for that: this way, the key sequence is actually translated into a single key press, and the command loop sees a self-insert-command. This is preferable to binding the key to a macro in the global map because this breaks mechanisms that rely on text input being self-inserted, such as undo groups.

(define-key input-decode-map [dead-acute ?ο] ?ό)

You can write a loop like this:

(mapc (lambda (string)
        (define-key input-decode-map (vector dead-acute (aref string 0)) (aref string 1)))
      '("οό" "υύ" "ιί"))