I know I can enter any character I need using the character-map applet, but that means grabbing the mouse/opening the "run" dialog, switching to another window, selecting the character, copying... you get the idea. Is there a quicker way to enter characters that are not available on the keyboard (and are not available as alt-gr combinations)? In my specific case I'm using a laptop with the Italian keyboard layout, but I suspect a general solution exists.