Hi!
> I released a keyboard patch for `hot keys' and wish to bring up a discussion
> topic around it.
Well, that seemed to work :)
I'd better not send separate responses to each I guess, here's a moderated one.
*many* wrote:
> The sysreq key needs to remain special: It allows recovery from pretty
> bad crashes, exactly because no user process is involved.
Well, it seems obvious that I was wrong here :)
My viewpoint was architectural-only. Need-it-for-practical-purposes overrules.
Paul Barton-Davis wrote about his XFree86 solution:
> I never released it because the XFree folks wouldn't agree to do
> something that would have made it work for everyone.
Seems this means that FunKeys won't get supported under X then... :(
> The relationship in Linux between the X server scancode handling and
> the kernel is nothing short of totally obfuscated and confused.
That is _so_ true, it's why I started this patch anyway.
> I'd rather not require the different handling at such a deep level.
That deep level buys you a generel treatment, and its size is quite modest!
> I regularly use all 18 of mine as an extra set of Fn keys in Emacs, for example.
Ah, but that's where `programmable' kicks in! Program only the shift+F3
combination and leave plain F3 untouched, for example. But anyway, I am mainly
aiming for keys that say `read email' or `skip track', not `F3'. At least,
you've got the freedom to use loadkeys on F3, or on the spacebar for that
matter, if you wanted to, but it's not always handy.
Guest section DW wrote:
> But it is only a single destination, so you need a daemon that reads
> /dev/funkey and opens sockets so that everybody who wants to register
> their interest in a few keys can communicate via a socket with the daemon.
That would be a very nice, general approach. But also something which could be
a security hazard when, say, a daemon taps password entry. For now, I've
chickened out with a simple daemon to demonstrate, and put my efforts in a
gentle kernel space approach.
*several* wrote:
> There have been somewhat similar attempts before.
I'd like to hear where to find more information/download on these!
I started my own patch because apperantly there was no support for FunKeys and
because I couldn't find anything. But I'll admit not having seen everything on
the Internet ;-)
Borislav Deianov wrote:
> I strongly disagree. I believe that all keys are created equal. [...]
> they all send a scancode down the cable which the OS/applications are
> free to interpret whichever way they want.
Agreed! My only statement is that _some_ of them seem `predestined' for a task
and that you may therefor wish to *instruct* the OS to treat them as non-app
keys. But if you wanted to, you could instruct it to treat the keys on your
numeric keypad as hot keys, or CapsLock, or that extra backslash-key. Whatever!
> "start key" [...] X sees it as a distinct keycode
As stated by others too: X does not support less accepted keys, and they seem
unwilling to work on it. Since X doesn't use keytables from Linux either, there
is no way to use those funny keys like `mute' under X.
> As for X, you'll be doing the world a better service
> if you teach the X server to give you keycodes for the funny keys and
> let you handle them from there.
It seems that Paul Barton-Davis tried it and was rejected.
> I do think it makes sense for the console where there isn't an easy way to
> intercept keys.
I dislike the idea of a separate solution for X and console interface if I wish
to give them the same look&feel.
In such cases, I don't mind an extra configfile format, especially if it's C :)
Alan Cox wrote:
> Im not sure if the extra device is needed or not.
> I think you should look at the Input device work
I will look it up!
I don't like the idea of having yet another device either, it was just the
only sensible mechanism I could think of.
Cheers,
-Rick.
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