Proposal: Symbol menu in post window.

[Lumpy]

Would anyone like for there to be a menu of symbols that come in handy from time to time but which require the Windows character map or Alt-key combinations? I nominate the following:

Alt0153 ™ (trademark)
Alt0162 ¢ (cents)
Alt0169 © (copyright)
Alt0174 ® (registered)
Alt0176 ° (degrees)
Alt0178 ² (squared, or footnote 2)
Alt0185 ¹ (first power, or footnote 1)
Alt0188 ¼ (one-fourth)
Alt0189 ½ (one-half)

[Martini_Enfield]

I think it’s an excellent idea; the only one from your list I don’t think is necessary is the “cents” sign; “c” has been used for as long as I can remember to denote “cents”.

Otherwise, it’s an excellent idea- I’m forever having to cut-n-paste symbols because the “Alt+numbers” thing doesn’t work for me.

[ultrafilter]

Degrees and footnotes can be done with vB tags like so:

[noparse]
[sup]1[/sup]
[sup]2[/sup]
[sup]o[/sup]
[/noparse]

The output is [sup]1[/sup][sup]2[/sup][sup]o[/sup].

The degrees symbol isn’t perfect, but it works well enough.

[Jragon]

@Martini_Enfield

I think it’s an excellent idea; the only one from your list I don’t think is necessary is the “cents” sign; “c” has been used for as long as I can remember to denote “cents”.

Otherwise, it’s an excellent idea- I’m forever having to cut-n-paste symbols because the “Alt+numbers” thing doesn’t work for me.

Just in case:

It only works on the numpad (and I think num-lock has to be on).

[rowrrbazzle]

There are tables of these all over the Internet. This post in one of our stickies points to one.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7698936#post7698936

I noticed the minor detail that we still can’t use html character entity names. mdash—mdash

The codes still work, but as before, they’re translated in your message source when you preview. FTR the work-around is to go back one page to restore the codes and make corrections there.

mdash—mdash

[Chronos]

Just in case:

It only works on the numpad (and I think num-lock has to be on).

It also only works on a PC. Macs use a different method for getting special characters, which relates them (if only in a vague way) to the regular character set. For instance, to create an ümläütëd character, you hit option-u (u for umlaut) followed by the character.

[Jragon]

@Chronos

It also only works on a PC. Macs use a different method for getting special characters, which relates them (if only in a vague way) to the regular character set. For instance, to create an ümläütëd character, you hit option-u (u for umlaut) followed by the character.

Can’t you do that for some characters on PC as well? I recall being able to do something like alt+semicolon+a for ä (or alt+shift+semicolon+a Ä). However I can’t get it to work now, maybe it only works in MS Word?

[Green_Bean]

@Martini_Enfield

…the only one from your list I don’t think is necessary is the “cents” sign; “c” has been used for as long as I can remember to denote “cents.”

Not in the U.S., as far as I can recall. But in context, I’m sure the intent would be clear, even to us Amurrcans.

I agree that having a symbol menu would be a nice convenience.