Re: setting gdk display

[Lars Hallberg <lah micropp se>]

Paul Davis wrote:

> > From Havoc:
>  
>
> > On Sat, 2003-10-25 at 15:17, Paul Davis wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > the specific problem with the relationship between keyboards and X
> > > modifiers is that X imposes no policy on bindings. its become "normal"
> > > for Alt to be bound to mod1, but there is no requirement that this be
> > > true, let alone that Alt_L and Alt_R should necessarily be the same
> > > modifier. 
> > >      
> > The basic idea is to have applications refer to hyper and super, and
> > GTK+ deals with the whole which-modifier-bit-is-that issue. See 
> >    
>
> what happened to meta? 
>  

Was wondering the same. *more* confusion isent needed. But ther's 
certenly room for meta, hyper and super on most modern keboard.

> i personally think this is all semantics. X defined a number of
> modifiers and gave them meaningless names with no particular bindings
> specified.  it feels as if what you're proposing is an identical
> scenario, only replacing the meaningless names like "modN" with ones
> like "hyper".
>  

To me, it sounds like two level of virtual keys, not a good idé realy :-(

This realy sounds like a job for freedesktop.org, to asign the modefier 
more meningfull names, simple alias for mod1, mod2.... but one more 
level of virtualisation is more questnable.

> until you go as far as windows or the mac does, none of this really
> makes life easier for users or developers. on those platforms,
> everybody knows that the key marked "FOO" does the job known as
> "foo". i know this task is much more difficult for linux, because of
> the diversity of the hardware involved.

Well, it is actuly impossable, the harvare may be a PC, or a Mac, or 
something different. The same keys with the same engraving is just not 
there!

> i can't reliably tell a user that they should press <key>-<button1>,
> because X (and GDK) doesn't give me keyboard state along with button
> events.  it gives me buttons and modifiers in the event->state
> field. until the key<=>modifier binding is defined and cast in stone,
> i still can't predict with true confidence what <key> will cause a
> certain bit to be set in the event->state field. and i note that the
> linux world doesn't even have a standardized name for the key engraved
> on most keyboards with a "windows" logo. is it "hyper", "super",
> "start", "windows", "logo" - i've seen all these names used. what key
> do i press to get mod5 or mod4?
>  

This is a ball for freedesktop again. If this was configured in a 
central point, preferably with localized plaintext deskriptions of witch 
key is modX (or whatever alias). Your aplikation can tell the user what 
keys to press. In printed docs You have to refer to the virtual names 
thou (wheter that is Mod1, 2, 3 or Meta, Hyper and Super) - but You can 
instruct the user how to find out what to press to get the modifiers.

Freedesktop org coul'd even recomend initial config for majore 
platforms. From every emacs keybinding I ever seen the konvention that 
Alt->Meta on a PC is pretty strong. If that was backed by a 
(semi)oficial recomendation it would be good.

Anyway, I don't think this is somthing that chould be solved per app, or 
even per toolkit. It shuld (att least) be atempted on a level like 
freedesktop. Or is that just me?

/LaH