Scrivener on Ubuntu/Wine: composite key

Support and Help
,
1

Hi there!
I tried to install Scrivener on Ubuntu with Wine to test it before, maybe, buy it.
Everything works fine except for the “ñ”. On Ubuntu I configured my composite touch (WinD) but Scrivener comports freaky with that.
(1)When I do AltGr+WinD+~ I see the ~ underlined, but when I press N, everything disappears!
(2)But if I press AltGr+WinD+g+g, then I change tab, come again on the tab I was writing, I can write one ñ… but only one! If I try to write a second one, it does like in (1).

I thought it was maybe a configuration in Wine, but everything works fine in Notepad++ installed with Wine.
I thought it could be a bad choice of the composite key, so I tried with “menu key” instead of “WinD”… but it does the same things.
Did anyone already see that comportment?

Thanks!

Edit: also, I can’t open the “Character Map” window… When clicking on Edit>Writing tools>Character Map, it happens nothing…

2

I have an old Linux version Scrivener (free) AppImage running on Ubuntu 22.04 but I tend not to use Scrivener. Nor do I favour Wine.
Depending on what you are writing there are other tools running natively in Ubuntu.

3

wine is very much focused on getting games running on Linux – the logic being that there are native alternatives for most other programs, but for games those are rare. Therefore keyboard handling in wine is rather low-level, it reads the keyboard setup and then takes the raw key events and handles them like Windows would for the same kind of keyboard setup. So it’s not surprising that a Linux / Unix special key like ‘compose’ doesn’t quite work in wine. You might have better luck setting up multiple keyboard layouts and switching to one which allows typing the character you need when necessary.

You could also check https://alternativeto.net for alternatives for scrivener.

4

I found a way to work around this problem: I made an automatically correction! “~n” => “ñ”. It was for this character that I use very often. With that, I can use Scrivener on Ubuntu.
Alternatives that runs natively on Ubuntu are based on Markdown that I don’t like… :wink: I tried it a few times, but it’s not for me…
I wonder why I can’t open the “Character Map” too…

5

Try and open the application via the terminal.
Any messages?

gnome-characters
6

When I try to open the Character Map in Scrivener after starting the application via terminal I have no message.
When I open gnome-characters via terminal I have this message:

$ gnome-characters
Gjs-Message: 22:42:40.322: JS LOG: Characters Application started

(org.gnome.Characters:36895): Adwaita-WARNING **: 22:42:40.479: AdwNavigationPage 0x64c38a522f40 is missing a title. To hide a header bar title, consider using AdwHeaderBar:show-title instead.
Gjs-Message: 22:42:40.484: JS LOG: Characters Application activated
7

Therefore, the application has started

8

It really helps to understand the nature of the documents you are writing.
Novel writers certainly favour Scrivener.
But technical writers favour other editors.
Dismissing Markdown is not a good idea. You can write in Markdown using several editors such as Zettlr, Sublime Text … then use Pandoc to convert.
An alternative to Scrivener is Scribus desktop publishing.
Currently I use CherryTree as first stage drafting editor then onwards to different publishing formats. So my advice is think about a toolchain of apps … from rough draft through to polished output to go to the publishers (such as using Scribus). For scientific writing look at Jupyter Notebooks and quarto (but this is Markdown again). Grit your teeth and learn Markdown through say Zettlr. Build a toolbox and don’t expect everything from one app.

9

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.