Configuring keyboard for Sanskrit transliteration in Linux

[Birgit Kellner]

Dear Colleagues,

this is a fairly technical question, so responses would be probably more
appropriate off-list.

I'm just starting to migrate from Microsoft Windows to Linux (SuSE), using
KDE 3.1 as a desktop manager.

How can I customize the keyboard for input of diacritical characters? For
instance, when pressing Alt + A, I want a long a displayed (Unicode
encoding).

Preferably this input method should be available in all X-based
applications.I understand that such information can be entered in Xmodmap,
but am still uncertain about the proper syntax.

If someone has customized their keyboard to this end and could send me a
sample Xmodmap file so that I could get a better grasp of the syntax, I
would be very grateful.

Other suggestions are welcome as well, of course - as I said, perhaps best
off-list. If others are interested, I could later post a summary of all
gathered information to the list.

Best regards,

Birgit Kellner