Re: macintosh keyboard patches (was: swiss german keyboard config needed (xev results))

[Frank Murphy <murphyf+deb-ppc@f-m.fm>]

> I was concerned about the keys that differ on an Apple keyboard,
> compared to a PC keyboard. Like control, option, apple, vs. control,
> windows, alt, altgt and the other 2 keys. Maybe these can be redefined
> after including the main rules/xfree86 file.

Yes, they can. The number of keys that are different is very small. I'd rather 
not duplicate these keymaps in different files. At least just do include 
some(keymap) in the files instead of copy-paste. Otherwise, overriding the 
keys can happen through the rules/xfree86 file.

> > The changes that you made to add dvorak and change the European keyboards
> > to use the Euro symbol also look good, though if you look in the
> > symbols/pc/ directory in XFree86 4.3, you'll see that they've changed
> > from using Mode_switch to change groups like:
> >
> >    key <AD03> { [ e, E ], [ EuroSign, Ediaeresis ] };
> >
> > they now use ISO_Level3_Shift to shift to the third level like:
> >
> >    key <AD03> { [ e, E, EuroSign, Ediaeresis ] };
> >
> > I doubt you'd want to make so many changes to these files, but you might
> > consider it.
>
> I have to look at it.
>
> How do you want us to type keys like @, €, | and the like on a german
> keyboard? The current symbols file doesnt handle these keys at all.
> See all the complains about that on the debian list, that goes for
> almost 2 years now. I for one want that fixed in 4.4 or whatever the
> next release is.

Me too. As I understand it, the € is engraved symbol on the E key on keyboards 
sold in Germany. So, to type it, the user should press and hold the AltGr 
key, then press the E key. For Xkb configuration, this means that the key 
AD03 should be defined like this:

key <AD03> { [ e, E, EuroSign, Ediaeresis ] }

Then, the AltGr key (which in Xkb-land is RALT) should be mapped like this:

key <RALT> {  [ ISO_Level3_Shift ] };

There are actually more-complete definitions in the file symbols/level3, so 
just include one of those.

The old way to do this was to define RALT to be Mode_switch, but that forced 
the key layouts to define a single (e.g. German) keyboard to use two groups 
to define one keyboard. The Xkb groups are supposed to be one per keyboard 
(so that one could easily map a Greek keyboard on a German keyboard).

Let me know what you come up with.

Frank