Re: xkb-data: Help needed for Macintosh keyboards

[Yannick Roehlly <yannick.roehlly@free.fr>]

Hi,

Here's another French with an ibook in love with Debian. ;-)

Denis, I tried your xkb-data package with the modifications done to
symbols/macintosh_vndr/fr for the modifiers.

The xorg.conf options are :

        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "macintosh"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "fr

Yves-Alexis Perez wrote:

> There is a fn key at the far left of the keyboard which I don't coun't
> because it's managed in kernel. Beside, there are:
> 
>        .------.-----.------.--------------.-------.----.
>        | Ctrl | Alt | Apple |     space    | Apple | ^ |
>        `------^-----^------^--------------^-------^----'
> keycodes  37    64    115          65        116    108
> name    Ctrl_L Alt_L Super_L     space ISO_Level3_Shift KP_Enter

On my ibook, it's a little different: the two apple keys have the same 115
keycode (but my apple usb keyboard makes the difference between the two 115
and 116 apple keys.

The fn key gives access to additional keycodes:
Here are my keycodes:

             .------.-----.------.--------------.-------.----.
             | Ctrl | Alt | Apple |     space    | Apple | ^ |
             `------^-----^------^--------------^-------^----'
keycodes        37    64    115          65        115    108
name          Ctrl_L Alt_L Super_L     space      Super_L KP_Enter
+fn keycodes   109   113    116                    116    117
+fn name      Ctrl_R  ISO_ Super_R                Super_R Menu
                      Level3_Shift

> I tried ISO_Level3_Shift and it acts as the Mode_Switch I had with my
> previous keymap. That is, I can access |\ etc... with this key + shift.

Here it's possible with the usb keyboard but is very weird with the ibook
keyboard. For instance, if I want to make a | (shit + ISO_Level3_Shift + l)
I have to do "fn + shift + alt" release "fn + shit" while maintaining alt
and do a l. ;-)

There's also the problem of the lack of multi-key (for instance if you want
to make a ó).

I'm not used to xkb (I know only a little of xmodmap) so I don't know the
use of Super_L and Super_R but I would suggest to assign the ibook apple key
(keycode 115) to ISO_Level3_Shift and the fn + apple key (keycode 116) to
multi-key.

Note that on a apple usb keyboard that would assign the left apple key (115)
to ISO_Level3_Shift and the right apple key (116) to multi-key.

On the apple usb keyboard, the right alt key (113) is yet assigned to
ISO_Level3_Shift so it could be assigned to Alt_R which would be consistent
with the ibook keyboard: alt=Alt_L fn+alt=Alt_R (like ctrt=Ctrl_L and
fn+ctrl=Ctrl_R).

By the way, if someone can indicate me a document explaining the use of
Ctrl_R, Alt_R, Super_L and Super_R. And also, is there a use for mod_switch
with xkb?

Yannick