xmodmap Oddness

[Giles Orr]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 12:22 AM, William O'Higgins Witteman
<william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:10:08PM -0500, Giles Orr wrote:
>  >On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:14 PM, William O'Higgins Witteman
>  ><william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>  >>  Ordinarily, I just fire up xev to get the keycode and then `xmodmap -e
>  >>  "keycode 64 = Control_L"`.  And that has worked for all of my keys but
>  >>  one - my Alt_L (keycode 64).  I was trying to remap it to Control_L, but
>  >>  it is staying subbornly Alt_L.
>  >>
>  >>  Here's the output of xev for my uncooperative keyboard:
>  >>
>  >>  KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
>  >>     root 0x63, subw 0x1800002, time 1468606840, (37,48), root:(1538,917),
>  >>     state 0x10, keycode 37 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
>  >>     XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>  >>     XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>  >>     XFilterEvent returns: False
>  >>
>  >>  KeyPress event, serial 32, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
>  >>     root 0x63, subw 0x1800002, time 1468618977, (37,48), root:(1538,917),
>  >>     state 0x10, keycode 64 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES,
>  >>     XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 37
>  >>     XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>  >>     XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
>  >>     XFilterEvent returns: False
>  >>
>  >>  The top key is working as expected, but the bottom one, which is the one
>  >>  I'd like to have actually be the Control_L, is claiming to be Control_L,
>  >>  as I remapped it, but when I press it is still actually Alt_L.  The only
>  >>  difference I see is that the one that doesn't do what I'd like has a
>  >>  keysym remap.  Given I put it there, that's not a huge surprise, but I
>  >>  am not sure what I should do.
>  >
>  >I was struggling with keymapping recently, sounds like a fairly
>  >similar problem.  I was trying to get Alt_R - which by default is
>  >mapped to AltGr, which I have no use for - to behave in the same way
>  >as Alt_L.  I tried this:
>  >
>  >   xmodmap -e "keycode 113 = Alt_R"
>  >
>  >Good start, associating the keycode with a name.  As you did, I got
>  >the keycode from xev.  Next:
>  >
>  >   xmodmap -e "add Mod1 = Alt_R"
>  >
>  >I thought that would do it, but it didn't because Alt_R was still
>  >associated with Mod5 _as well as_ Mod1.  This is where I really needed
>  >"xmodmap" without params to see what was going on - and why a keypress
>  >wasn't giving the response I expected.  So to finish it:
>  >
>  >   xmodmap -e "remove Mod5 = Alt_R"
>  >
>  >Hope this helps.
>
>  I think it starts me on my way, the problem I am having is that I don't
>  know what to call some of these keys - which ones are Mod1, Mod2, etc.
>  Is there a way to find that out?  Thanks.

I'm afraid that this is the blind leading the blind as I'm most
assuredly not an expert ...  But try running just "xmodmap" without
parameters.  I get an output like this:

   xmodmap:  up to 3 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

   shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
   lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
   control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x6d)
   mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x71),  Meta_L (0x9c)
   mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
   mod3
   mod4        Super_L (0x7f),  Hyper_L (0x80)
   mod5        Mode_switch (0x5d),  ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c)

Is that what you're looking for, or will it help?

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
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