Is there anyway to work with these characters like æøå for example?

I need a shortcut key to type the letters, for example escape + a = å

I also need some programs that will read files which have æåø correctly

Is this possible? If anyone has experience with it plz help me.

Actually i just realized that i only need a text editor that understands extended-ascii and a way to map key-combinations to a special ascii char. It should be possible but i have NO idea how

in vim, CTRL-V then a control sequence allows inputting of some special characters, does that do anythign for you?

i havent tried it, but i tested emacs in console cause emacs has special char support but it doesn't show up correctly so if vim is run from console i think the same will happen.

It may be obvious but just in case... Have you tried to use a different font? Some fonts are limited to a restricted character set.

When you say "extended ASCII" what exactly do you mean ?

IMHO, 8 bit ASCII is a poor choice; I think it's better to select a character coding you want to use, then you can work out which font supports it, keymaps, hotkeys, how to create the text.

I had the same kind of problem using Thai, I had to create some tools to make it easier.

the point isn't that it has to be 8 bit ascii, but that 8bit ascii is sufficient.

If you are using a text editor that supports UTF-8, Unicode or whatever + you can map keys to special chars, PLEASE tell me how you do it and what apps you use.

Thx in advance

Look on Meanie's website, specifically here:
http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/custom.html#mapping

In VIM, if I set the font to unifont, and type :

a<CTRL-H>a, the character å appears correctly.

Digraphs must be enabled.

Same thing if I do:

<CTRL-V>229

It works also with other characters you mentioned.

and you are just running VIM through standard console right? btw no i didn't even think about the fonts thing.. i will check it out for sure

@jon_j: thx, this looks like it will definitely help

I'm using VIM on Qkonsole with unifont as you can see here :

ye u are right

that + the mapping is what i need

i should be able to figure it out now
thx guys