I liked how Fortress would transform your ASCII file into LaTeX renderable output. Also the APL input in emacs and many other editors offers a pretty reasonable compromise. `.i` => ι (iota), as an example. It doesn't take much effort to learn. Then there's also the option of letting people type it longhand and having the editor substitute for you: `\iota` (or maybe `\iota<tab>`) => ι. The prefix option is handier for the common symbols, but the the TeX-style work well for less common ones.
That's more or less what the compose key does (but works everywhere and not only in EMACS). :-)
Only that there isn't such combination defined by default. But adding it is trivial:
<Multi_key> <i> <i> : "ι" U03B9 # GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA
This line in your ~/.XCompose and you can type "ι" by pressing compose-i-i without changing the whole keyboard layout away form your default.
I'm using the compose key the whole time to input "special symbols"™. It's very intuitive. (Like, for example you get the "™" when pressing compose-t-m).
I have the compose key on the otherwise useless CAPS-LOCK (and CAPS-LOCK on/off by pressing left and right space simultaneously). Both options are only ticking a check-mark away when using Linux.
That's more or less what the compose key does (but works everywhere and not only in EMACS). :-)
Only that there isn't such combination defined by default. But adding it is trivial:
This line in your ~/.XCompose and you can type "ι" by pressing compose-i-i without changing the whole keyboard layout away form your default.I'm using the compose key the whole time to input "special symbols"™. It's very intuitive. (Like, for example you get the "™" when pressing compose-t-m).
I have the compose key on the otherwise useless CAPS-LOCK (and CAPS-LOCK on/off by pressing left and right space simultaneously). Both options are only ticking a check-mark away when using Linux.