A basic understanding of keyboards and how they work around the world can help avoid problems in application development.
Dead keys
Some languages require more characters to be entered than there are keys available
on the keyboard. When only accented characters are required, a dead key can
be used. The dead keys are shown on the French keyboard in Figure 2 with a square
gray box below the accent mark. To enter a dead key you first type the accent
and then the base character. For instance, to type an e circumflex (ê)
you would first press the circumflex dead key, and then press the e key. This
is the opposite of Unicode composition where the base character is given first
and then the modifier. Most keyboards do not have any engraved indicator that
the key is a dead key.
