Re: Physical keyboard events

[Cecilio Pardo <cpardo@imayhem.com>]

On 29/10/2024 16:38, 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!

Thanks for the insight. I will keep it simple and be conservative. And 
ready to throw it all away if the result asks for it. :)