Superkey?

[Amanda Yilmaz]

I can't speak to how easy it is to remap "modifier" keys such as Right
Alt via xmodmap, since I've never tried it myself.  But as far as I
know, you won't be clobbering any crucial functionality as long as you
always use the standard North American English keyboard layout, where
the left and right Alt keys are normally set up to do the same thing.

The situation is different if you ever use certain other keyboard
layouts, including the Canadian French, British English and virtually
all European and South American layouts.  In much of the world, the
right Alt key is used as a third-level shift key to produce "alternate"
characters (much the way the Option key is used on the Mac), and is
marked "AltGr", for "Alternate Graphic".  Especially important is the
euro sign, which is usually mapped to AltGr/RAlt+E or AltGr/RAlt+5; this
mapping was necessary because the euro sign came into being after most
national keyboard layouts had been standardized, so there was no place
for it otherwise.  As ever, there's a Wikipedia page on this topic:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key>.  If you don't need this
functionality, however, you should be good to go (as long as xmodmap
lets you do the remapping).

Of course, certain programs might have their own ideas, particularly
games.  Does anyone here know of any programs that differentiate between
the two Alt keys even when you're using the North American English
keyboard layout?  If any do, they're breaking international
compatibility.

Amanda

----- Original message -----
From: "Evan Leibovitch" <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org>
To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:00:26 -0400
Subject: [TLUG]: Superkey?

Hey folks.


Upon installing Beryl on a Kubuntu system, I found that some of the
features require "Superkey+<key>" to get to.

Apparently "Superkey" is normally the 'windows' key on conventional PC
keyboards -- but such key doesn't exist on my laptop.


I've looked at the keyboard mapping using xmodmap and apparently, the
right Alt key appears not to be mapped to anything.


How easy is it to do this mapping to that the right Alt key performs
this function? Am I clobbering any other hidden function of Alt_R on
conventional systems?


Any pointers or advice is appreciated. Thanks!


- Evan


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