Tips for using "extra" keyboard keys. Mini-HOWTO

[Keith G. Robertson-Turner]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 13:27:13 -0700, Rob Park wrote:

> Keith G. Robertson-Turner wrote:
>> Add the following line:
>> 
>> LogiSearch     :10090001
> 
> I found that the KeysymDB file already contains a ton of useful 
> keywords, you don't have to make up your own. Or rather, making up your 
> own is more work with little benefit :)

True, but then I'm just experimenting, I didn't want to mess with the
defaults until I was sure it worked.

>> Quit gconf-editor and logout (restart X), no need to reboot.
> 
> There's no need to restart X, either, gconf-editor's changes take effect
> immediately.

But gconf-editor doesn't update the keyboard map. I could have re-run
xmodmap instead of restarting X, I guess.

> Here's a sample from my configs, for a Microsoft Natural Multimedia
> Keyboard:
> 
>> /etc/X11/Xmodmap
> /home/rbpark/.Xmodmap
> Also, here's ~/.Xclients:
> xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap
> 
>> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB
> 
> I didn't make any changes to this file.

Keymap settings is one area where I don't see the point in having separate
.rc.mine configs, since either you're going to use those keys or not. The
specific keybinding_commands on a per-user basis, certainly, but not the
keycodes and aliases.

>> # xmms-toggle-mute.sh
> ~/bin/mute-toggle:
> #!/bin/bash
> 
> NEW=$(aumix -vq|perl -pe 's/^\D+(\d+).+/\1/;')

Ah, the wonders of Perl ;-)

>> # xmms-toggle-play.sh
> 
> XMMS can already do this itself (xmms --play-pause). In fact, xmms-shell
> is entirely unnecessary...

Excellent ... I had no idea. Guess the author of xmms-shell had no idea
either. This must be relatively new for xmms, is it?
 
> Launchmoz is a script that launches firebird/thunderbird.
> 
> Read about it here:
> 
> http://slashdot.org/~Feztaa/journal/54469 (there's a download link too)

I like firebird/thunderbird, but current development is a bit raw ATM
(e.g. - launching firebird when mozilla is running). I guess sooner or
later we're all going to be using the "birds", but until they've matured a
bit more, I'll stick with the main moz branch. 

>> I assume there are ways of getting all this to work under different
>> window managers, YMMV.
> 
> Yeah, metacity makes it difficult by requiring you use gconf-editor, KDE
> makes this kind of stuff fairly straightforward.

I usually run *box for (very occasional) root logins. Fluxbox was a bit
late for the FC1 release, but I got OpenBox which seems nearly identical.
I'm wondering how I'd get this stuff working on OpenBox? Hmmm, time to
RTFM, I guess.

-
Keith