Re: Physical keyboard events

[James Thomas <jimjoe@gmx.net>]

Peter Feigl wrote:

>> I will define a list of keys: LeftShit, RightShift, LeftControl, etc.
>> The platform dependent code will decide which one was pressed. As events
>> will be invisible, I don't think we will interfere with input methods.
>
> I caution you to think about this very well, there are *very* many
> non-standard keyboards or remapped keyboards out there, where users
> expect everything to work.
>
> In general, it is best to leave the mapping of physical keys to intended
> keypresses to whatever the operating system provides. In the specific
> case of Xorg, please only look at the keysyms, do not try to do anything
> magical with the scancodes, this will only result in a broken
> implementation.
>
> I understand the wish to have this, but it is a way more complex topic
> than it looks like from a first glance.
>
> I have had to deal with way too many bad implementations of this than
> wanting to deal with it in Emacs as well :-/
>
> Sorry for the criticism, in case you have already thought about all of
> this and solved it, I'd really be interested in hearing more about it!

I feel the same way. On that note, isn't it possible to achieve the same
thing in Xorg simply by sending fake key or fake locked modifier events?

IIRC, just using xkbcomp.

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