i3wm / debian accent marks

I use dvorak in english layout over a latin american keyboard. To change within layouts inside i3wm I use mate-settings-daemon.

Then with mate-keyboard-properties you could configure as you wish. In my case, when press the two CTRL keys.

If you run i3wm over GNOME instead of MATE, put gnome-settings-daemon in the config file ~/.config/i3/config.

I would suggest using the international (intl) variant of the us layout instead of some complex workaround. You can temporarily (until logout) set it with

setxkbmap us -variant intl

To set it permanently on Debian, you have to modify /etc/default/keyboard and set the variables XKBLAYOUT and XKBVARIANT accordingly:

XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT="intl"

You can also run dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration; service keyboard-setup restart. See the Debian Wiki for more information.

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The intl variant is mostly identical to the standard us layout, with some key differences:

• The right Alt key is now Alt Gr, which acts much like the Shift key in that it generates different characters, when pressed in conjunction with other keys (ISO_Level3_Shift). It can also be combined with Shift to write yet another set of characters.

  • Alt Gr+a prints "á", Alt Gr+Shift+a prints "Á". Similarly for e, i, o and u.

  • Alt Gr+n prints "ñ", Alt Gr+Shift+n prints "Ñ".

  • All other alpha-numeric and symbol keys also print additional characters, when combined with Alt Gr and Alt Gr+Shift.

• Dead keys: these keys do not generate a character on their own, instead output depends on the next key that is pressed:

  • circumflex (" ^ ", Shift+6): Pressing Shift+6 followed by a will print as "â". Other combinations like Shift+6 followed by d will print nothing. To print "^" either press Shift+6 twice or Shift+6 followed by Space.

  • grave aka backtick (" ` ", `): ` followed by e will get you "è"

  • tilde (" ~ ", Shift+`): Shift+` followed by Shift+n will print "Ñ".

• Some changed keys:

  • apostrophe aka quote (" ' ", ') is replaced by (dead) acute (" ´ "): Pressing ' followed by i will print "í". To print an " ' ", you need to press Alt Gr+' (Alt Gr is the right Alt key)

  • double quote (" " ", Shift+') is replaced by (dead) diaeresis: Shift+' followed by o prints "ö". To print " " ", you need to press Alt Gr+Shift+'.

  • less (" < ", <) and greater (" > ", Shift+<) now print " " and " | " instead. You can still type " < " by pressing Shift+, and " > " by pressing Shift+..