The Accent Hold extension for GNOME Shell has been announced, designed to facilitate the entry of characters with accents and other diacritical marks in Ubuntu. This tool implements behavior similar to macOS or smartphone keyboards, where holding down a key allows selecting character variants from a pop-up menu next to the cursor.

Currently, the standard method in Ubuntu requires more complex processes, such as using key combinations with hexadecimal codes or configuring a compose key. With this extension, the user can choose the character using numbers, arrow keys, or the mouse, and can also customize the character list, add emojis, or adjust the delay for the menu to appear.

Functionality is limited to environments using Wayland and applications with GNOME input methods, such as Firefox or Electron applications. In the case of Qt applications, the selector can be opened using the Super + E shortcut. The extension is available for GNOME versions between 45 and 50, with an update pending to support GNOME 51.

Written automatically with AI.