I can't type Greek accents. Why?

Hello,
I have tried several installs of Unity in my Ubuntu Gnome 20.04 (AMD Ryzen 7/4100) but none of them seems to work correctly with greek fonts. I wasn't having this problem with my previous Windows Os so it is not a hardware problem.
I tried to install several Greek fonts and create font assets on TextMeshPro. I even tried to generate a font atlas but nevertheless, there are always missing characters.
When I copy paste accents works fine. To be more specific I can type α but not ά, I can type the equivalent ε but not έ and so on.
I am trying to create and distribute a game for children with special needs, so any help would be much appreciated!

 

For my problem, regarding on Greek diacritics on characters not showing:

I have noticed that when in Greek language I can not copy paste to the inspector. When I switch to the Eng keyboard copy paste works normally. I can even see the Greek characters with diacritics upon them. I have searched the entire UI but I couldn't find a setting about keyboard language input.

It is certainly an input problem from Unity's side...

Any advises please?

 

A problem with the copy/paste keyboard shortcut maybe? Did you try doing it with the Edit menu instead?

I remember that an older version of Unity had keyboard shortcuts not working on Linux unless you used a QWERTY keyboard layout (you had to remap the shortcuts in the settings to make it work with whatever keyboard layout you're using). I had this problem because I'm using a BÉPO keyboard layout.

This problem has been fixed on more recent version of Unity. Unfortunately I don't remember which version had the problem and which one corrected it. But I can tell that on version 2020.3 (the one I'm using) the problem isn't there any more.

 

Thank you for replying.
The copy paste issue is not the main problem. The thing is that regarding Ubuntu the newest Unity build doesn't support unicode characters. As an example I can type alpha (α) but not an alpha with diacritics (ά). I can type epsilon (ε) but not an epsilon with diacritics (έ). The same goes for all the Greek vowels.
I created a font atlas with textmeshpro, I saw all my greek fonts -all where there. No matter what, this input problem persists.
A problem that I haven't faced when in Windows. So, I must say this is a bug.
I spoke several hours on Fungus discord server for this matter. Unfortunately, a solution to this problem there were none. And that is so sad :-(

 

I did a quick test. The Unity editor definitely supports Unicode characters.



What I noticed it that I can't type Japanese characters in Unity. I can copy paste them, but I can't type them. I don't have a Japanese keyboard, I type Japanese using Mozc. Mozc works fine in any other application but in Unity, for some reason, it's always disabled. Not a big issue for me though.

 

For Greek? Please, can you try something in Greek and suggest a workaround?

I can too type Greek characters but I can not type Greek characters with diacritics. It is certainly an input problem.
I have also installed different variations of the Greek keyboard that come bundled with Ubuntu (no dead keys, polytonic e.tc). If I find "the cure" I will report back

 

I don't know how to type Greek

Did you try typing it into an inspector field like I did in my above screenshot? Did it display properly there? Do you have a screenshot or a GIF showing the problem?

 

https://imgur.com/NYcahQE


Sorry for taking so long to answer. Strange times, we barely have some free time for ourselves.
As you can see in the above screenshot I can type characters but the diacritics are missing. Again, copy paste is not functioning.
Is there a way to change Ubuntu's input for Greek characters?

 

I can confirm that copy pasting from the edit menu works. If that helps you find a solution?

 

So copy pasting doesn't work with the keyboard but works with the menu? In my opinion this must be the shortcut bug I told you about. Maybe try remapping the shortcuts in Unity's settings, or upgrade to a newer version if you can.

Regarding the main issue, did you try normalizing the string? I can't be sure because I can't reproduce the bug, but it looks like a normalization issue to me. Maybe try to make a custom property drawer for your inspector and call the String.Normalize() method and see if this fixes the issue.

 

My friend,
Thank you so much for taking the time to dealing with this.
First of all, I am on the latest version of Ubuntu -20.04 and it is a clean install.
I have also installed the latest version of Unity + all modules.
Secondly, I am planning to use Fungus which I find it to be extremely handy and unfortunately I known nothing about C#.
But I am willing if you have the time, to follow loyally your instructions if you provide me some screenshots.
This fix besides the copy + paste thing will make my keyboard capable again of typing diacritics?
I appreciate it

 

I can't be sure of what the issue is unless I investigate it. I can't investigate it unless I can reproduce it, and I can't reproduce it unless I learn to type Greek.

For now, I can only guess that it is a normalization issue. Unicode has two way or encoding accented characters. An accented character can be either one code representing the accented character, or a pair of codes : one for the character and one for the accent. My guess is that, as you type, your keyboard produce the later but Unity expects the former and that's why the accents (or diacritics in your case) don't appear. That would also explain why it works if you type the characters somewhere else and copy paste them into Unity.

If I am right then this is an issue to report to Unity devs (or maybe it's specific to Fungus but I know nothing about that). Until it is fixed it should be possible to work around it by normalizing the strings yourself. Normalizing is the process of re encoding the string so that each accented letter is encoded with only one code.

Sadly I can't help you more than that. Investigating further would take time and I can't afford it. I have to eat

 

I managed to reproduce the issue with some French letters. Accented letters that require only one key press to type (like éèà) works fine. Accented letters that require two key press to type (one for the accent and one for the letter, like ï and î) do not work. Only the letter appears into Unity, the accent is not there. Looks like my hypothesis was correct after all

I tested on other OS too. It works fine on Windows and Mac. The problem only appears on Linux. This is worth a bug report already.

 

Ok I did it.
Thank you

 

The bug is finally on issuetracker. If someone is affected can freely add his vote so the problem may be fixed soon.
Thank you MadWatch for finding this!

https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...en-2-keys-are-required-to-enter-the-character

 

I'm also experiencing the same issue.