Special-purpose keyboard buttons

Special-purpose keyboard buttons

[RD]

I'm wondering how to get emacs to see the "extra" buttons on my Dell 
keyboard, model SK-3185,

There are little round buttons marked with <-, ->, a little house, 
envelope, picture of a calculator, etc.

There are also player controls: stop, left, right, music notes, and a 
rotary knob for sound volume.

On Windows, the buttons do things, e.g.:

The music notes start Windows Media Player, and the player controls 
operate the Player.

The Envelope button starts mail.  The button with a picture of a 
calculator starts the calculator.
etc.

On Linux (Redhat 9), the buttons have no effect.

How can I find out what these buttons' names are?  Once I know the 
names, will I be able to bind them in emacs with ordinary global-set-key 
commands?

Regards,
Bob

Re: Special-purpose keyboard buttons

[Alan Mackenzie]

RD <rjjd@localnet.com> wrote on Thu, 27 Apr 2006 21:10:06 -0400:
> I'm wondering how to get emacs to see the "extra" buttons on my Dell 
> keyboard, model SK-3185,

> There are little round buttons marked with <-, ->, a little house, 
> envelope, picture of a calculator, etc.

YUCK!  ;-)

> There are also player controls: stop, left, right, music notes, and a 
> rotary knob for sound volume.

> On Windows, the buttons do things, e.g.:

> The music notes start Windows Media Player, and the player controls 
> operate the Player.

> The Envelope button starts mail.  The button with a picture of a 
> calculator starts the calculator.
> etc.

> On Linux (Redhat 9), the buttons have no effect.

> How can I find out what these buttons' names are?  Once I know the 
> names, will I be able to bind them in emacs with ordinary global-set-key 
> commands?

In Emacs, press these keys, then follow up with C-h l (`view-lossage').
That should tell you what Emacs is seeing.  If Emacs sees nothing, then
you'll need to enhance your keyboard configuration.

> Regards,
> Bob

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").

Re: Special-purpose keyboard buttons

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 28.04.2006 um 03:10 schrieb RD:

> How can I find out what these buttons' names are?

There are two ways:

  1) in GNU Emacs you can type C-q and then press any of these keys  
and you'll have their ANSI codes;
  2) in xev you can find the key event they produce.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped. - Groucho Marx