xkeycaps man page on Knoppix
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XKeyCaps(1) XKeyCaps(1)
NAME
xkeycaps - graphically display and edit the X keyboard mapping
SYNOPSIS
xkeycaps [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...]
DESCRIPTION
The xkeycaps program displays a keyboard. Moving the mouse over a key
describes the keysyms and modifiers that that key generates. Clicking
left on a key simulates a KeyPress event. Clicking right on a key
brings up a menu of operations, including a command to change the
keysyms that the key generates. This program is, in part, a graphical
front-end to xmodmap(1).
OPTIONS
xkeycaps accepts all of the standard toolkit options, and also accepts
the following options:
-keyboard keyboard-name or -kbd keyboard-name
Specifies the type of keyboard to display. There are many differ‐
ent computer keyboards in the world, and xkeycaps must know which
one you are using in order to function correctly. Case does not
matter when specifying a keyboard name.
If you're running on the console display of a Sun or HP, then xkey‐
caps will interrogate the attached keyboard hardware directly to
determine what keyboard you're using. But if you're running
remotely, or on another type of machine, then you must specify a
keyboard somehow.
-help
Lists the recognized values for the -keyboard option.
-gutterwidth number or -gw number
Specifies the number of pixels of space to leave between each key.
-font fontname
Specifies the font to use to display the keycaps.
The following standard X Toolkit command line arguments are commonly
used with xkeycaps:
-display host:dpy
This option specifies the X server to contact.
-geometry geometry
This option specifies the preferred size and position of the win‐
dow.
-bg color
This option specifies the color to use for the background of the
window. The default is light gray.
-fg color
This option specifies the color to use for the foreground of the
window. The default is black.
-bw number
This option specifies the width in pixels of the border surrounding
the window.
-xrm resourcestring
This option specifies a resource string to be used. This is espe‐
cially useful for setting resources that do not have separate com‐
mand line options.
DISPLAY
The bottom part of the window is a drawing of a keyboard. In the top
left of each key is printed the string which actually appears on the
surface of the key. In the bottom right of the key is the (hexadeci‐
mal) keycode that this key generates.
At the top of the screen are several lines of text describing the key
under the mouse (or the most recently typed key.) These lines are:
KeyCode: This displays the text printed on the physical key, and the
keycode generated by that key in hex, decimal, and octal.
KeySym: This displays the set of KeySyms that this key currently
generates.
ASCII: This displays the ASCII equivalent of this key, taking into
account the current modifier keys which are down.
Modifiers: this displays the modifier bits which this key generates.
If a key generates modifiers, it is a chord-key like Shift
or Control.
AutoRepeat: Whether the X server claims that this key autorepeats. I
say ``claims'' because the OpenWindows X server is the only
one I have encountered for which this information is accu‐
rate. The per-key autorepeat flag seems to be almost-uni‐
versally ignored.
COMMANDS
There are several buttons in the upper left corner of the window. They
are:
Quit
Exits the program.
Select Keyboard
Pops up a dialog box from which you can change which keyboard is
displayed. The left column lists the known types of keyboards, and
the right column lists the known layouts (mappings) of those key‐
boards.
Type At Window
After selecting this, you are asked to click on some other window.
After doing this, clicking on keys on the keyboard display will
simulate key events on the window you selected. Selecting the root
window or the xkeycaps window turns this off.
If you are using a window manager (for example, twm(1)) in which
you can lock the keyboard focus on a window and still click on
other windows without having the focus change, then you can accom‐
plish the same thing merely by focusing on another window and
clicking on the keys in the xkeycaps window.
Restore Default Map
This command restores the keyboard to its default state. If you
execute this command while displaying a keyboard which is not the
type of keyboard you are really using, your keymap will be in a
nonsensical state. There is no way for xkeycaps to tell what key‐
board you are using except by taking your word for it, so don't
lie.
Write Output
This command writes an xmodmap input file representing the current
state of the keyboard (including all of your changes) to a file in
your home directory. Note that this command DOES NOT write out the
default keymap for this keyboard type unless you have clicked on
Restore Default Map before.
The file will be called .xmodmap-hostname, where hostname is the
name of the machine you're running on. It will warn you if the
file already exists.
It prompts you with a dialog box: you can either write an xmodmap
file representing the state of every key, or you can write a
smaller file which describes only the changes.
The idea is that in the appropriate startup script, you would add a
line like
xmodmap /.xmodmap-`uname -n`
in the appropriate init file, so that those keyboard modifications
are made each time you log in. (If you're not sure where this com‐
mand should go, ask your system administrator, as that tends to
vary from site to site.)
Clicking left on a key simulates a KeyPress event. Releasing the but‐
ton simulates a KeyRelease event. If you click left on a key and move
the mouse while the button is down, KeyPress and KeyRelease events will
be simulated on every key you move the mouse over. Think of the mouse
as your finger: if you drag the mouse over several keys, they will go
down and up in turn.
Clicking left on a key which is associated with modifier bits (such as
Shift or Control) causes that key to ``lock'' down. Clicking left
again releases the key. In this way, you can generate key-chords with
the mouse: to generate Control-C, click left on the Control key, and
then click on the C key. Click on Control again to turn the control
modifier off.
Typing a key on the real keyboard simulates a KeyPress/KeyRelease event
pair in the same way that clicking on a key does.
You can also combine mouse and keyboard input: for example, if you use
the mouse to select the Shift key, and type a character, the event that
is simulated will have the Shift modifier set. And if you hold down
the real Control key, and click on the C key in the window, a Control-C
event will be generated. (Assuming, that is, that your window manager
does not intercept control-left-button for its own purposes.)
Clicking right on a key pops up a menu of commands for the given key.
They are:
Exchange Keys
After selecting this menu item, you are asked to click on another
key. That key and the key on which you brought up the menu will be
exchanged. This changes the keyboard mapping immediately.
Duplicate Key
After selecting this menu item, you are asked to click on another
key. That key will be made a copy of the key on which you brought
up the menu. That is, the two keys will generate the same set of
keysyms and modifiers. This changes the keyboard mapping immedi‐
ately.
Disable Key
The key on which you brought up the menu will be made to generate
no keysyms and no modifiers. This changes the keyboard mapping
immediately.
Restore Key To Default
The key on which you brought up the menu will be restored to its
default state; no other key will be altered. This actually changes
the current keyboard mapping.
Edit KeySyms of Key
This pops up the "Edit Key" window, which allows you to arbitrarily
change which keysyms and modifiers this key generates.
On the left side of the window is the list of the keysyms that this
key currently generates. (A key may generate up to eight keysyms;
the interpretation of these keysyms is described in the X protocol
document, and is summarized later in the KEYSYMS AND KEYCODES sec‐
tion of this man page.)
The second column is a multiple-choice list of the eight modifier
bits that this key may generate. For example, if you want a key to
behave as a ``control'' key, you should select the Control modi‐
fier.
The third and fourth column (the scrolling lists) are for changing
the keysym associated with the key. When you select a keysym-posi‐
tion from the first column, the character set and keysym will be
displayed in the scrolling lists. Clicking on a keysym in the
``KeySym'' column will install that keysym in the highlighted slot
in the first column.
To select a keysym from a different character set, click on the
character set name in the second column. (The Latin1 and Keyboard
character sets are the most commonly used.)
At the bottom of the window are three buttons: Undo, Abort, and Ok.
Clicking on Undo reverts the Edit Key window to the current state
of the key in question. Abort closes the Edit Key window without
making any changes. Ok closes the Edit Key window and installs
your changes (the current keyboard mapping is modified.)
KEYSYMS AND KEYCODES
To effectively edit your keyboard mapping, there are some terms you
need to be familiar with:
KeyCode This is a raw scan-code that is read from the keyboard; each
physical key on the keyboard has a different number associ‐
ated with it; this mapping cannot be changed (but that's ok.)
Generally, every keyboard has its own set of KeyCodes, which
is why you will probably need to have a different keymap for
every system you use.
KeySym This is a symbol which can be generated by a single press of
one key on the keyboard: for example, all letters, numbers,
and punctuation are keysyms, and so are more abstract things
like ``shift'' and ``control''.
Each KeyCode (that is, key on the keyboard) is associated
with certain KeySyms. The KeySyms are what give the keys
their semantics (and makes the A key generate an A), not the
KeyCodes.
Usually keys are associated with one or two keysyms, which
correspond to the symbols generated when the key is pressed,
and when it is pressed while the shift key is held down.
There is a special case, which is that if the key contains
only one KeySym, and it is a letter, then the Shift key does
the obvious thing that one does to letters.
KeyCap Not to be confused with KeySyms, this refers to the text
which is printed on the physical keys: it is immutable
(unless you repaint your keyboard...)
Chord This term refers to a set of two or more keys held down
simultaneously (by analogy with piano keyboards.) All but
one of the keys will generally be Modifier Keys. Sometimes
Constellation is used to mean the same thing.
Modifier Key
This is a key like shift or control, which is used to alter
the interpretation of other keys which are held down at the
same time. Generally, pressing a modifier key without also
pressing a non-modifier key does nothing.
A key is a modifier key if it has a Modifier KeySym on it.
(More specifically, if the KeyCode of that key is associated
with a Modifier KeySym.)
Modifier KeySym
A KeySym is a modifier keysym if it has a Modifier Bit asso‐
ciated with it. But, the rules are a little more complicated
than that. It's easier to describe by example:
For a key to behave as one expects a shift key to behave, the
keycode should have the Shift modifier bit set; and the key
should generate one of the keysyms Shift_L and Shift_R. If
either of these is not true, the key will not behave as a
shift key.
Analogously, a control key must have the Control modifier
set, and use one of the keysyms Control_L or Control_R.
This implies that if you wanted to swap your shift and con‐
trol keys, it would not be enough to simply swap their modi‐
fier bits: you must swap their keysyms as well. If you only
swap the modifier bits, it might appear to work at first, but
other things would malfunction.
Keys like Meta (and Super, Hyper, etc.) are a bit more com‐
plicated (see below.)
Modifier Bit
Modifier bits are attributes which certain keysyms can have.
Some modifier bits have predefined semantics: Shift, Lock,
and Control. The remaining modifier bits (Mod1 through Mod5)
have semantics which are defined by the keys with which they
are associated.
That is, the Control modifier means Control if it is attached
to Control_L or Control_R, and is illegal elsewhere.
But Mod1 means Meta if it is attached to Meta_L or Meta_R;
but it would mean Alt if it were attached to Alt_L or Alt_R;
or Hyper with Hyper_L or Hyper_R; and so on. (It could not,
however, be attached to Control_L, since the Control modifier
has already spoken for those keysyms.)
If you're thinking that this is all senselessly compli‐
cated... you're right.
X PROTOCOL DOCUMENT ON KEYMAPS
The following is a more precise technical explanation of how keymapping
works. This description is from the X Protocol document, and is
reprinted here for your convenience:
A list of KeySyms is associated with each KeyCode. If that list
(ignoring trailing NoSymbol entries) is a single KeySym ``K'', then
the list is treated as if it were the list ``K NoSymbol K NoSym‐
bol''. If the list (ignoring trailing NoSymbol entries) is a pair
of KeySyms ``K1 K2'', then the list is treated as if it were the
list ``K1 K2 K1 K2''. If the list (ignoring trailing NoSymbol
entries) is a triple of KeySyms ``K1 K2 K3'', then the list is
treated as if it were the list ``K1 K2 K3 NoSymbol''.
The first four elements of the list are split into two groups of
KeySyms. Group 1 contains the first and second KeySyms, Group 2
contains third and fourth KeySyms. Within each group, if the sec‐
ond element of the group is NoSymbol, then the group should be
treated as if the second element were the same as the first ele‐
ment, except when the first element is an alphabetic KeySym ``K''
for which both lowercase and uppercase forms are defined. In that
case, the group should be treated as if the first element were the
lowercase form of ``K'' and the second element were the uppercase
form of ``K''.
The standard rules for obtaining a KeySym from a KeyPress event
make use of only the Group 1 and Group 2 KeySyms; no interpretation
of other KeySyms in the list is given here. (That is, the last
four KeySyms are unused.)
Which group to use is determined by modifier state. Switching
between groups is controlled by the KeySym named Mode_switch.
By attaching that KeySym to some KeyCode and attaching that KeyCode
to any one of the modifiers Mod1 through Mod5. This modifier is
called the ``group modifier''. For any KeyCode, Group 1 is used
when the group modifier is off, and Group 2 is used when the group
modifier is on.
Within a group, which KeySym to use is also determined by modifier
state. The first KeySym is used when the Shift and Lock modifiers
are off. The second KeySym is used when the Shift modifier is on,
or when the Lock modifier is on and the second KeySym is uppercase
alphabetic, or when the Lock modifier is on and is interpreted as
ShiftLock. Otherwise, when the Lock modifier is on and is inter‐
preted as CapsLock, the state of the Shift modifier is applied
first to select a KeySym, but if that KeySym is lowercase alpha‐
betic, then the corresponding uppercase KeySym is used instead.
ICCCM ON THE MODIFIER MAPPING
The following is a more precise technical explanation of how modifier
keys are interpreted. This description is from the Inter-Client Commu‐
nications Conventions Manual, and is reprinted here for your conve‐
nience:
X11 supports 8 modifier bits, of which 3 are pre-assigned to
Shift, Lock and Control. Each modifier bit is controlled by the
state of a set of keys, and these sets are specified in a table
accessed by GetModifierMapping() and SetModifierMapping().
A client needing to use one of the pre-assigned modifiers should
assume that the modifier table has been set up correctly to control
these modifiers. The Lock modifier should be interpreted as Caps
Lock or Shift Lock according as the keycodes in its controlling set
include XK_Caps_Lock or XK_Shift_Lock.
Clients should determine the meaning of a modifier bit from the
keysyms being used to control it.
A client needing to use an extra modifier, for example Meta,
should:
Scan the existing modifier mappings. If it finds a modifier that
contains a keycode whose set of keysyms includes XK_Meta_L or
XK_Meta_R, it should use that modifier bit.
If there is no existing modifier controlled by XK_Meta_L or
XK_Meta_R, it should select an unused modifier bit (one with an
empty controlling set) and:
If there is a keycode with XL_Meta_L in its set of keysyms, add
that keycode to the set for the chosen modifier, then
if there is a keycode with XL_Meta_R in its set of keysyms, add
that keycode to the set for the chosen modifier, then
if the controlling set is still empty, interact with the user
to select one or more keys to be Meta.
If there are no unused modifier bits, ask the user to take cor‐
rective action.
The above means that the Mod1 modifier does not necessarily mean Meta,
although some applications (such as twm and emacs 18) assume that. Any
of the five unassigned modifier bits could mean Meta; what matters is
that a modifier bit is generated by a keycode which is bound to the
keysym Meta_L or Meta_R.
Therefore, if you want to make a ``meta'' key, the right way is to make
the keycode in question generate both a Meta keysym, and some previ‐
ously-unassigned modifier bit.
THE MODE_SWITCH KEYSYM
In case the above didn't make sense, what the Mode_switch keysym does
is, basically, act as an additional kind of shift key. If you have
four keysyms attached to the A key, then those four keysyms will be
accessed by the chords: A; Shift-A, Mode_Switch-A; and Mode_Switch-
Shift-A, respectively.
Like any Modifier Key, for Mode_switch to function, it must have a mod‐
ifier bit attached to it. So, select one of the bits Mod1 through Mod5
(whichever is unused) and attach that to the Mode_switch key.
THE MULTI_KEY KEYSYM
Not to be confused with Mode_switch, Multi_key allows the input of mul‐
tiple character sequences that represent a single character (keysym.)
A more traditional name for this keysym might have been Compose.
The Multi_key keysym is not a modifier keysym. That is, for it to
function properly, it should not have any modifier bits associated with
it. This is because it is not a ``chording'' key: you do not hold it
down along with other keys. Rather, you press Multi_key, then release
it, then press and release another key, and the two together yield a
new character.
For example, one traditional binding would be for Multi_key, followed
by single-quote, followed by A to produce the Aacute keysym.
Not all vendors support the use of the Multi_key keysym; in particular,
Digital, Sun, and HP support it, but the X Consortium does not. (The
reason for this, I am told, is that ``Compose'' sequences are consid‐
ered obsolete; the party line is that you should be using Input Methods
to do this.)
Whether Multi_key works is a property of the Xt library (not the X
server) so it's possible that on a single system, Multi_key might work
with some applications and not others (depending on how those applica‐
tions were compiled and linked.)
If you use Lucid Emacs or XEmacs, then you can take advantage of
Multi_key sequences even if your version of Xt doesn't support it, by
loading the x-compose library, which simulates the traditional Xt
behavior. For more info, read the commentary at the top of the file
"/usr/local/lib/xemacs-*/lisp/x11/x-compose.el".
DEAD KEYSYMS
Dead keys work similarly Multi_key, but they are two-keystroke commands
instead of three. For example, pressing the Dead_tilde key, releasing
it, then pressing the A key would generate the single keysym Atilde.
(They are called ``dead'' keys because they do not, by themselves,
insert characters, but instead modify the following character typed.
But HP likes to call them ``mute'' instead of ``dead,'' no doubt to
avoid frightening the children.)
Again, these are not supported by all versions of the Xt library (but
can be simulated by XEmacs.)
Also note that different vendors have different names for the dead
keysyms. For example: depending on your vendor, X server version, and
the phase of the moon, you might find that the name of ``dead-tilde''
is Dead_Tilde, Dtilde, SunFA_Tilde, SunXK_FA_Tilde, DXK_tilde,
DXK_tilde_accent, hpmute_asciitilde, hpXK_mute_asciitilde, or even
XK_mute_asciitilde. It's a mess! You'll have to just try it and see
what works, if anything.
THINGS YOU CAN'T DO
People often ask if xkeycaps or xmodmap can be used to make one key
generate a sequence of characters. Unfortunately, no: you can't do
this sort of thing by manipulating the server's keymaps. The X key‐
board model just doesn't work that way.
The way to do such things is to set translation resources on particular
widgets. It has to be done on an application-by-application basis.
For example, here's how you would convince xterm(1) to insert the
string next when you hit F17:
xterm*VT100.Translations: #override \
<Key>F17: string("next")
Other applications may have different mechanisms for accomplishing the
same thing, and some applications might not support it at all. Check
the relevant man pages for specifics.
Likewise, you can't convince one key to generate another key with modi‐
fiers (for example, you can't make F1 behave like Ctrl-A except by
using translations, as above.)
It is also not possible to make a keyboard key behave as a mouse but‐
ton.
LOSER VENDORS
Both HP and S.u.S.E. ship their systems with broken keyboard settings
by default. They really should know better, but they don't.
As explained above, it is undefined behavior for one modifier bit to be
shared between two keys with dissimilar semantics.
By default, HP uses Mod1 for both Meta and Mode_switch. This means
that it's impossible for a program to tell the difference between, for
example, Meta-X and Mode_switch-X.
So, to repair this mess, you need to give the Mode_switch key a differ‐
ent modifier bit (mod2, for example.) Or, you could just remove it
from the keymap entirely.
S.u.S.E. Linux is even more screwed up than HP: whereas HP's default
keymap contains only one bug, S.u.S.E.'s default map contains three
completely different errors!
First, their default keymap has the Control modifier attached to both
the Control key and the Multi_key. This is completely crazy, because
not only is Multi_key not a control key, it's not even a chording key!
It mustn't have any modifier bits attached to it at all.
Second, they attach Mod1 to Meta_L and also to Alt_R. Some people
think that ``meta'' and ``alt'' are synonyms, but the fact is that the
X Window System does not agree. Those are distinct keys. It's possi‐
ble to have both ``meta'' and ``alt'' keys on the keyboard at the same
time, and to have programs interpret them distinctly. But of course
only if they don't bogusly share the same modifier bit, making the
interpretation of that bit be ambiguous.
Third, they attach Mod5 to both Scroll_Lock and to Hyper_R, which is
wrong for reasons that should by now be obvious.
The easiest way to fix your S.u.S.E. configuration is to: remove con‐
trol from Multi_key; change the left Alt key to generate Alt_L instead
of Meta_L; and delete the Hyper_R keysym from the keyboard.
If you have any pull with these vendors, I encourage you to encourage
them to get their act together.
X RESOURCES
XKeyCaps understands all of the core resource names and classes as well
as:
*Keyboard.keyboard (class Keyboard)
Which keyboard to display; this is the same as the -keyboard com‐
mand-line option. If this is not specified, the default keyboard
is guessed, based on the server's vendor identification string.
*Keyboard.Keyboard.selectCursor (class Cursor)
The cursor to use when selecting a key or window with the mouse.
The default is the crosshair cursor.
*Keyboard.Key.highlight (class Background)
The color to use to highlight a key when it is depressed. If this
is the same as the background color of the key, it is highlighted
with a stipple pattern instead.
*Keyboard.Key.keycapColor (class Foreground)
The color to paint the keycap string.
*Keyboard.Key.keycodeColor (class Foreground)
The color to paint the keycode number.
*Keyboard.Key.borderColor (class Color)
The color of the box around each key.
*Keyboard.Key.keycapFont (class Font)
The font to use to draw the keycap string.
*Keyboard.Key.keycodeFont (class Font)
The font to use to draw the keycode number.
*Keyboard.Key.borderWidth (class Int)
The thickness of the box around each key.
*Keyboard.Key.gutterWidth (class Int)
How many pixels to leave between this key and it's neighbors to the
right and bottom.
The class of each key widget is ``Key,'' as you see above. The name of
each key is the string(s) printed on its face. So if you wanted (for
example) the Shift keys to have wider borders, you could specify that
with
xkeycaps*Keyboard.Shift.borderWidth: 2
ACTIONS
It is possible to rebind the actions which happen when a key or mouse
button is pressed or released. These actions are available on the Key‐
board widget:
HighlightKey(condition, arg)
This places the key in question in the highlighted state.
If no argument is passed to this action, then the key is determined
by the event which invoked this action. If this action is invoked
by a KeyPress or KeyRelease event, the key-widget is the key corre‐
sponding to the key that the event represents. If it is a Button‐
Press, ButtonRelease, or PointerMotion event, then the key-widget
is the one under the mouse.
The argument may be one of the words mouse, highlighted, or dis‐
played, meaning the key under the mouse, the key most recently
highlighted, or the key currently being described in the ``Info''
area at the top of the window, respectively.
The condition may be one of the words ifmod, unlessmod, iftracking,
unlesstracking, ifhighlighted, or unlesshighlighted. If ifmod was
specified and the key in question (as determined by the argument or
by the invoking event) is not a modifier key, then this action is
not executed. The unlessmod condition is the opposite. The
iftracking and unlesstracking conditions allow you to do some
actions only if (or unless) the key is being ``tracked'' with the
mouse (see below.) The ifhighlighted and unlesshighlighted actions
allow you to do some things only if (or unless) the key in question
is currently in the highlighted state.
UnhighlightKey(condition, arg)
This places the key in question in the unhighlighted state. Argu‐
ments are as above.
ToggleKey(condition, arg)
This makes the key be highlighted if it is unhighlighted, or
unhighlighted if it is highlighted. Arguments are as above.
SimulateKeyPress(condition, arg)
This action makes a KeyPress event corresponding to the key be syn‐
thesized on the focus window. Arguments are as above.
SimulateKeyRelease(condition, arg)
This action makes a KeyRelease event corresponding to the key be
synthesized on the focus window. Arguments are as above.
TrackKey(condition, arg)
This makes the key in question begin being ``tracked'', which means
that moving the mouse off of it will simulate a button-release
action, and then will simulate a button-press action on the key
that the mouse has moved on to. This action may only be invoked
from a ButtonPress or ButtonRelease event.
UntrackKey(condition, arg)
This makes the key in question no longer be ``tracked.''
DescribeKey(condition, arg)
This action causes the key and its bindings to be displayed in the
``Info'' section at the top of the window, if it is not already
described there.
The default actions for the Keyboard widget are:
<Motion>: DescribeKey(mouse,unlessTracking) \n\
\
<KeyDown>: HighlightKey() \
DescribeKey(unlessMod) \
DescribeKey(displayed) \
SimulateKeyPress() \n\
\
<KeyUp>: UnhighlightKey() \
DescribeKey(displayed) \
SimulateKeyRelease() \n\
\
<Btn1Down>: HighlightKey(unlessMod) \
ToggleKey(ifMod) \
TrackKey(unlessMod) \
SimulateKeyPress(ifHighlighted) \
SimulateKeyRelease(unlessHighlighted) \n\
\
<Btn1Up>: UntrackKey(highlighted) \
SimulateKeyRelease(highlighted,unlessMod) \
UnhighlightKey(highlighted,unlessMod) \n\
\
<Btn3Down>: XawPositionSimpleMenu(keyMenu) \
MenuPopup(keyMenu) \n
If you don't want a key to be described each time the mouse moves over
it, you can remove the <Motion> action. In that case, you should prob‐
ably add DescribeKey() to the <Btn1Down> and <KeyDown> actions.
If you want the key under the mouse to be described even while the
mouse is moving with a button down, then remove the unlessTracking
parameter from the DescribeKey action bound to <Motion>.
If you don't want the modifier keys to toggle, then change the Button1
actions to
xkeycaps*Keyboard.actions: #override \
<Btn1Down>: HighlightKey() \
TrackKey(unlessmod) \
SimulateKeyPress() \n\
<Btn1Up>: UntrackKey(highlighted) \
SimulateKeyRelease(highlighted) \
UnhighlightKey(highlighted) \n
Remember that these actions exist on the Keyboard widget, not on the
Key widgets. If you add actions to the Key widgets, things will mal‐
function.
ENVIRONMENT
DISPLAY
to get the default host and display number.
XENVIRONMENT
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
XKEYSYMDB
to get the location of the XKeysymDB file, which lists the vendor-
specific keysyms.
UPGRADES
The latest version can always be found at
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xkeycaps/
SEE ALSO
X(1), xmodmap(1), xset(1), xdpyinfo(1)
BUGS
Because this program has default colors that aren't "black" and
"white", the -rv command-line option doesn't work. But the incantation
% xkeycaps -fg white -bg black -bd white
will do what you want on a monochrome screen.
The NeXT default map is believed to be incorrect; someone with access
to a NeXT will need to debug this.
There is no portable way to be sure what keyboard is being used; this
means it will often not default to the correct one, and if the user
makes changes to the keymap while displaying a keyboard which is not
the right one, very bad things can happen.
If you depress more than a dozen keys at a time, many X servers get
confused, and don't transmit enough KeyRelease events; the result of
this is that the xkeycaps keys will get ``stuck'' until they are
pressed again. (Don't go like that.)
The AutoRepeat flag is apparently useless on all X servers except the
OpenWindows one (I've never seen another server that didn't ignore it.)
You don't get to select from the set of Vendor keysyms (those keysyms
which are defined in the XKeysymDB file) unless you're running X11r5 or
newer.
NCD's non-US keyboards do not use the standard R4/R5 mechanism for
attaching more than two keysyms to one key; instead of simply having
three or four keysyms attached to the keycode in question, the Compose
key changes the actual keycode of the key (it turns its high bit on.)
The xkeycaps program doesn't really understand this. Someone from NCD
support told me that in future releases they will do things the R4/R5
way instead of the way they do things now, so hacking xkeycaps to
understand the current behavior is probably not worth the effort.
The Type at Window command doesn't seem to work on the WreckStation
version of XTerm. I assume some variation of the normal XTerm's Allow
SendEvents command is necessary.
If you can't select anything from the right-button popup menu, it might
be because you have NumLock or CapsLock down. I'm not sure how to fix
this, it seems to be some dumb Xt thing.
If the popup menu is always greyed out, or doesn't correspond to the
key that you clicked on, it might be because you're running xswarm, an
old version of xautolock, or some other program that antisocially
interferes with event-propagation. (Don't go like that.)
Because of the nonlinear way in which this program uses XLookupString,
there's no sensible way for it to do compose processing, and show you
the results of ``dead'' key or Multi_key sequences.
It needs to know about more keyboard types (and no doubt always
will...)
L-shaped keys aren't drawn accurately. We should use the Shape exten‐
sion for that.
In addition to displaying the ASCII version of the given character, it
should display the corresponding character in the character set
(Latin2, Kana, Greek, etc.) This would require having fonts for all of
those character sets, though, and as far as I can tell, they don't all
come standard.
When running on a Sun and talking to an OpenWindows server, we should
parse the appropriate file from $OPENWINHOME/etc/keytables/ to deter‐
mine the default keymap. No doubt there are system-specific ways of
doing this in other environments as well.
The HP C compiler complains about "invalid pointer initialization" in
the header files. This is a bug in that compiler, not in xkeycaps.
This compiler bug goes away if you invoke HP's cc with the the -Aa
(ANSI) option.
The xmodmap program still sucks. Since its ADD and REMOVE directives
take keysyms as arguments instead of keycodes, there are things that
you can do with XKeyCaps that you can't represent in an xmodmap script
(at least, not without great pain.)
The xmodmap program has no commands for changing the autorepeat status
of keys, so that information is not written in the output. Perhaps we
could write out an appropriate xset command instead. (For example, to
turn on autorepeat on PgUp (which happens to have key code 103) on
Solaris, you would do: "xset r 103".)
Some versions of OpenWound use a nonstandard mechanism for specifying
which keys have toggle (lock-like) behavior (whereas most other X
servers base this behavior on the keysym: if Caps_Lock or Shift_Lock is
generated, the key locks, otherwise it does not.) XKeyCaps doesn't
know how to change the lock status on these servers. This is because I
don't know how, either. If you know what system calls are necessary to
hack this behavior, tell me.
The XKB interface of X11R6 looks to provide most of the information
which xkeycaps needs to know, but I haven't had time to investigate
this yet.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1991-1999 by Jamie Zawinski. Copyright © 2005-2006 by
Christoph Berg. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell
this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted
without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all
copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice
appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about
the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as
is" without express or implied warranty.
AUTHOR
Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 10-nov-91.
Please send in any changes you make! Especially new keyboards. The
strength of this program lies in the fact that it knows about so many
different keyboards, thanks to the hundreds contributions received over
the years. If you have to make your own modifications, please do your
part! Send the changes back to <cb@df7cb.de> to get them incorporated
into a future release.
Thanks to:
Jonathan Abbey, Alon Albert, Vladimir Alexiev, David Arnold, David
Axmark, Ruediger Back, Pedro Bayon, Corne Beerse, Eric Benson,
Christoph Berg, Markus Berndt, Roger Binns, Stefan Bjornelund,
black@westford.ccur.com, Mark Borges, Volker Bosch, Dave Brooks,
Lorenzo M. Catucci, Michel Catudal, Francois Regis Colin, John Cop‐
pens, Cesar Crusius, Bart Van Cutsem, Matthew Davey, Christopher
Davis, Albrecht Dress, Kristian Ejvind, Michael Elbel, Joe English,
Eric Fischer, Morgan Fletcher, Olivier Galibert, Carson Gaspar,
Andre Gerhard, Daniel Glastonbury, Christian F. Goetze, Dan R.
Greening, Edgar Greuter, John Gotts, Berthold Gunreben, Jens Haf‐
steinsson, Adam Hamilton, Magnus Hammerin, Kenneth Harker, Ben Har‐
ris, Mikael Hedin, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo, Mick Hellstrom, Neil Hendin,
Andre Heynatz, Mike Hicks, Alan Ho, Hide Horiuchi, Dirk
Jablonowski, Alan Jaffray, Anders Wegge Jakobsen, Chris Jones, Jor‐
gen Jonsson, Peter Kaiser, Heikki Kantola, Tufan Karadere, Benedikt
Kessler, Philippe Kipfer, Edwin Klement, John Knox, Haavard
Kvaalen, Frederic Leguern, Simon Leinen, Michael Lemke, Tor Lil‐
lqvist, Torbjorn Lindgren, Tony Lindstrom, Richard Lloyd, Ulric
Longyear, Ulf Magnusson, Cliff Marcellus, John A. Martin, Tom
McConnell, Grant McDorman, Hein Meling, Jason Merrill, Aleksandar
Milivojevic, Manuel Moreno, Ken Nakata, Pekka Nikander, Todd Nix,
Leif Nixon, Christian Nybo, Antoni Pamies Olive, Edgar Bonet
Orozco, Steven W. Orr, Martin Ouwehand, Daniel Packman, John
Palmieri, Chris Paulson-Ellis, Antony Pavloff, Eduardo Perez,
Michael Piotrowski, Andrej Presern, Jeremy Prior, Dominique Qua‐
travaux, Matthias Rabe, Garst R. Reese, Peter Remmers, Todd Rich‐
mond, Ken Rose, Pavel Rosendorf, Gael Roualland, Lucien Saviot,
Johannes Schmidt-Fischer, Andreas Schuch, Larry Schwimmer, Joe
Siegrist, Jarrod Smith, Tom Spindler, Robin Stephenson, Joerg
Stippa, D. Stolte, A. A. Stoorvogel, Juergen Stuber, Markus Stumpf,
Jeffrey Templon, Jay Thorne, Anthony Thyssen, Christoph Tietz,
tkil@scrye.com, Juha Vainikka, Poonlap Veeratanabutr, Ivo Vollrath,
Gord Vreugdenhil, Ronan Waide, Jan Wedekind, Bjorn Wennberg, Mats
Wichmann, Stephen Williams, Barry Warsaw, Steven Winikoff, Carl
Witty, Stephen Wray, Endre Witzoe, Kazutaka Yokota, Yair Zadik, and
Robert Zwickenpflug.
XKeyCaps 2.47 02-Jan-06 XKeyCaps(1)
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