De-arrowing my system...how easy it is?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

It is actually very easy, and therefore somewhat dangerous, because if you aren't careful
you can muck up your keyboard and render it useless.

There are three tools you should master

1. dumpkeys
This will write your keymap to standard output or to wherever you redirect it.
e.g. dumpkeys test.keymap
will creat a keymap file named test.keymap

2. showkey
will tell you the keycode of any key you press. What is a keycode? It is
the hardware designation of a key used by the keymap. 

3. loadkeys
This loads your keymap from a file name argument 
e.g loadkeys test.keymap

Here's how we copy the function of the left arrow key to the shift control J key combination.

Run showkey and press the h key and left arrow keys respectively.
Showkey tells me that my j key is keycode 36 and my left arrow is keycode 105.

With this information, I can now edit the test.keymap file
I created with dumpkeys.

Editing the new test.keymap file and searching for
keycode      105 I learn that the function for that key is, not surprisingly,  "Left". 
Pay attention to capitalization in the function names, and for arbitrary white space between the word keycode and the number.

Next find the line for
shift control keycode    36
now all I need to do is change its function, which is "Linefeed", to "Left".

Lastly I run
loadkeys test.keymap
and lo and behold, shift control J now acts like a left arrow key.

Perform similar edits for the other arrow keys and whatever keyboard and modifier keys you want to use, although
I'd suggest control shift j, k, l, and i.

On Tue, Feb 08, 2022 at 12:14:06PM +0000, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> ?????? So, this is something I'm wondering.
> 
> Given I'm on my laptop currently, I'm wondering how easy it'd be to shift
> the arrow keys function to, say, control+shift and maybe the vim key
> bindings so I don't have to take my hands entirely of the keyboard to do
> things that the arrow keys do, like neavigating a web page, selecting text,
> and so on?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list at redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list

-- 
Rudy Vener
Website: http://www.rudyvener.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RudySalt
The difference between truth and falsehood is that truth remains the same no matter which political party holds the majority.