I'd like to change the way diacritics work under Xubuntu.

My problem

My native language is pt-BR and my notebook has an american keyboard. Thus, I use ' and " followed by keys like u and c to achieve things like ú, ç and ü. It all works well.

However, in the case of apostrophes and quotes, that creates a problem when I use ' followed by:

1. letters that won't accept the acute accent ( ´ , ACUTE ACCENT -- 0x00B4) at all, like t; and
2. letters that won't accept the acute in pt-BR, like r.

In 1, ' with t does absolutely nothing.

In 2, ' with r creates r (LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH ACUTE -- 0x0155), which is used, afaik, for some eastern european languages like slovak. It isn't used in portuguese, just like ?, s, z, ?, ?, ?, n and all consonants (portuguese do not take diacritics in consonants).

Question

That said, is there a way to better support the portuguese-brazilian language using an american keyboard? It is very common here --- I actually prefer the american keyboard to our own, known as “ABNT”.

Desired solution

1. I'd like to deactivate unused diacritics, so case 2 would behave just like case 1.
2. Additionally, if possible, I'd like case 1 to behave like it does under Windows. As an example, typing ' followed by t should write 't (acute followed by T) instead of doing nothing.

About 2, in my humble opinion, doing nothing is counterproductive. I realize the behavior is reasonable according to logic ("there isn't t-acute, so please tell the computer to typeset apostrophe --- ', SPACE --- instead of acute). But from a human, practical point of view, I think it makes more sense (to me, at least).

Additional comments

• I believe this also applies to spanish, french, italian and other western european latin languages.

• On the console (Ctrl+Alt+F?), case 1 is not a problem. I don't need to press space as apostrophes are automatically added. However, there, I'm unable to access cedilla (ç). Two completely different behaviors.

• If it's just a matter of customizing text config files (possibly creating a custom layout or whatever), I'd be glad to share my efforts. I just need guide on the "howto" part. Somehow Google only points me to the "enough" people (those who cope with the situation and think that it works "well enough"). And since I have definitely migrated to Linux/Xubuntu after years, I'd like to leave just as I like it (and I'm sure others as well). For example, if there is some kind of scripting or definition to tell the computer to do what I described, so be it.