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Re: What about a "Linux" key?



Enrico Zini <enricoz@arci02.bo.cnr.it> writes:

> Hello PC users!
> 
> What about putting a penguin sticker on top of those "Window 95"
> keys on all new keyboards ?
> 
> They could come handy as new modifiers, for example to switch
> virtual consoles, leaving Alt free and providing a good alternative
> for Ctrl-alt(gr)-Fn in X and DosEmu; more, one could use them to
> control X window managers leaving usual keys for applications
> (e.g. Alt-Tab used by Midnight Commander is usually bound to some
> sort of cycling through windows), and we could use a single-key
> compose.
> 
> Their scancodes are already seen by Linux, but I could not find any
> way to bind them to a modifier (it seems there are no extra
> modifiers to use). Also, I'm not good enough to fiddle with
> xmodmap. Anyway I have been successfull in binding the menu-like
> thing to compose: "echo keycode 127 = Compose | loadkeys".
> 
> Is there a way to have a new modifier or we need to hack kernel? How
> is Linux doing on a Sun, since they have plenty of extra keys and
> modifiers?
> 
> Maybe we could build a new keyboard mapping table?
> 

Hmmm... on my machine the "menu" key becomes just that - a Menu key.
Xemacs seems to know about it (it brings up the same menu I see if I
use mouse button 3).  And, in an xterm, it sends Esc-[-2-9-~, which I
happen to think is very appropriate* (but this is from someone who
keeps a VT220 on the same desk and frequently connects to VMS
systems.) Also, I appear to have a modifer free - Mod3:

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x6d)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Multi_key (0x71)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Meta_L (0x73),  Meta_R (0x74)
mod5        Scroll_Lock (0x4e)

(as you can see, I've made the right alt my compose key)
Of course, this is all X talk, and doesn't suggest anything about a
new map for the console in text mode (which would be nice - I'm a bit
annoyed at having one meta key for X and a different one for the text
console).  Also, as for what to do with all the keys a Sun has - in X, 
the problem has already been solved (by Sun).  It should be easy to
adapt the console mode from that.

* ^[[29~ is the sequence sent by the "Do" key on dec VT200 terminals,
  and in many VMS programs this key has a somewhat similar effect to
  Meta-X in Emacs.


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