Re: Documenting Keyboard prefs - Layout Options

[danilo gnome org (Danilo Šegan)]

On Thursday at 9:37, Joachim Noreiko wrote:

> Is there a list of all the group labels in the Layout
> Options tab, or could someone tell me where to find
> them in source, so I don't have to retype them all?

Look at /etc/X11/xkb/base.xml or /etc/X11/xkb/xorg.xml (depending on
your system; it may even be xfree86.xml if you are using a really old
X).

Then search for "<optionList>".

Note that this is part of xkeyboard-config[1].  If you want to get a
simpler file without translations, look at base.xml.in inside
xkeyboard-config CVS or tarball.

[1] http://freedesktop.org/Software/xkeyboard-config

> And could someone tell me what they all do? There's a
> few that are self-explanatory, but most I don't
> understand at all.

There are many of them.  I'll explain basic concepts you need to
understand for most of them.  Note that some of these may change
between xkeyboard-config releases, and their availability depends on
what version of xkeyboard-config or xkbdata is installed on your
system. 


"Group" represents a certain keyboard layout or variant (eg. "USA
keyboard", or "French DVORAK keyboard").  So, you have key combinations
which switch between loaded "groups" (which you add in "Layouts"
tab).  XKB architecture limits users to 4 simultaneously loaded
groups, so you may want to note that. 


"Third level" is a way to allow more than two different meanings of a
key (you get the initial two with just pressing a key, or pressing it
with Shift; eg. "a" and "A", "1" and "!").  A "third level chooser" is
all about setting a key (combination) to get the third (fourth with
Shift) meaning.   For example, on some keyboard layouts, you can get
"€" (euro) by pressing <third-level-chooser>+e.

"Control key position" should be clear (which key acts as a
Ctrl/Control key; this also allows removing Caps Lock and replacing it
with Control).

"Use keyboard LED to show alternative group" is about using the Scroll
Lock and Num Lock LEDs (lights) for indication of a "group".  When you
load more than one group, and you switch between them, LEDs turn on
and off (so, they don't react to Scroll and Num lock anymore).  I
am not exactly sure how they behave (you need to test it).

"CapsLock key behaviour" lists some options for Caps Lock itself, and
I don't know what all these options are.

"Meta" is a key present on some proprietary Unix systems (eg. Sun's
keyboards have it), and is commonly replaced with "Alt" on PCs.  I
think similar holds for "Super" and "Hyper" keys.  "Win" and "Menu"
keys are Microsoft Windows keys, first poping up a system menu on
Windows (equivalent of Alt+F1 in Gnome), and other poping up a context
menu (the same as Shift+F10 in Gnome, I think).


"Compose" key is used to initiate combinations of several characters
(most commonly you press the "Compose" key, then the accent you want,
and finally letter you want accented; eg. Compose + ' + a gives "á").
However, this depends on the keyboard map, and you can get all sorts
of effects with this (eg. Compose + o + c gives ©).  Both examples I
gave are from US International keyboard layout.


Cheers,
Danilo