Re: Orca on laptops.

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Lukas Loehrer wrote:...
> I would therefore say that CapsLock is the more suitable choice of the
> two as a default orca modifier key on laptops.
>   
I don't wish to belabor this point, but I find that terminology 
confusing.  If we remap the CapsLock key, then we are not using the 
CapsLock modifier at all!  The question remains, then, "what modifier do 
we assign to the (physical) CapsLock key?" in order to use it for orca.

If we remap CapsLock to 'control', then the regular control key will of 
necessity have the same effect.   This would also continue to conflict 
with the "normal" uses of the control key.

I think we need to resolve this second issue (i.e. of what _modifier_ we 
use for orca) before dealing with the first issue (i.e. what physical 
key we wish to assign that modifier to).  As I said originally, we only 
have a few modifiers to choose from, whatever physical keys we wish to 
map them to.  From X.h, we have:

Shift
Lock
Control
Mod1  (usually Alt)
Mod2  (usually 'Meta' ?)
Mod3  (usually NumLock?)
Mod4  (Windows or Menu key, depends on the xkb map)
Mod5  (not sure about this one, either Windows or Menu key on some maps)

I suppose we could use 'Meta', provided we don't mind remapping some 
physical key in existing keymaps, since it doesn't seem to be widely 
used on PC laptops these days.

The API call which should be used to determine how a particular keysym 
maps to a particular modifier bit (for Mod1 through Mod5)  looks like this:

meta_mask = XkbKeysymToModifiers (display, XK_Meta_L);

Note that in theory left and right versions of the 'Meta','Control', 
etc. keysyms could be mapped to different mask bits.

best regards,

Bill
> Best regards, Lukas
> ___________________________________