When I type into a textfield the sequence Compose then ' then a, it puts the
text "á" into the field, which is good. Unfortunately the events it sends to
the component are not as good:

java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_PRESSED,keyCode=192,keyChar='`'] on textfield0
java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_TYPED,keyCode=0,keyChar='`'] on textfield0
java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_RELEASED,keyCode=192,keyChar='`'] on textfield0
java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_PRESSED,keyCode=65,keyChar='a'] on textfield0
java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_TYPED,keyCode=0,keyChar='a'] on textfield0
java.awt.event.TextEvent[TEXT_VALUE_CHANGED] on textfield0
java.awt.event.KeyEvent[KEY_RELEASED,keyCode=65,keyChar='a'] on textfield0

Note that nothing is delived to correspond to the Compose key, and no event
makes mention of the char value "á".

The implications of this lack of event creation are that lightweights cannot
handle these extended characters, because they have no way of differentiating
"'a'e~n" from "áéñ".

Try composed characters in the JFC!