Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

I have a Dell BT folding keyboard intended for their Axim PDAs, and a N800.

The keyboard works for basic typing, but it would be nice to rig up some of the keyboard shortcuts it has (keys marked with Today etc).

I've seen reference to modifying xmodmap, but I know nothing about how to do that, and from what I can tell, it appears to need "keycodes", and it's not clear to me how to determine what those are.

I've tried the Hardware Keyboard control panel, but it protests about the modifier keys being unacceptable. I think I need to re-map the keys before I can use them.

I'm also concerned that the advice I can find concerns the 770, and things are clearly rather different on the 800.

Anyone gotten one of these keyboards to work, and care to share the results (so: do my work for me :-) )? Or otherwise, what's involved in remapping keys on this thing?

I'm happy with: refer to Linux xmodmap howto if that's really the best answer available, but I was hoping for something more specific and simple. TIA.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

You need a small program called "xev" that will show you the actual keycodes for the keys you press. Then you can use those keycodes to write or modify an xmodmap file (after reading the manual of course :-) that will make those keys do what you want.
Problem is, I think I just read somewhere else that the existing xev binary (for OS2006) doesn't run on the N800, so you'll have to wait for the OS2007 version to materialize...

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Can anyone please help me finding xev for n800? I need to modify the german kb mapping for my new Thinkoutside Ultra-Slim Keyboard.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Ok, I give a reply by myself since I had this idea (which works): on my n800 I installed OpenSSH and enabled X forwarding in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, on the laptop (opensuse 10.2) I allowed ssh in the firewall and issued command 'xhost +'. Then from the n800 I did "ssh -X me@mylaptop" and after login I started 'xev'.

Any further help to fix the behaviour of the Thinkoutside ultra-slim (hid!) bluetooth kb (QWERTZ-version!) would be appreciated. Strange: Fn(green) + 'a' should give '@', but the key events with and without Fn for this key (and some others) do not differ. Thus in both cases I get 'a'. I tried all 3 keyboard entries predefined by Nokia and also several language settings. Due to my understanding Fn+a and a alone HAVE to generate different key events ?!

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

You should also check what the hardware KB is set to in the control panel. For my ThinkOutside not so slim BT KB it is set to generic 104 and that maps very well. By default it was set to the Nokia KB, and that gave me a bunch of odd key mapping.

Edit- I just saw the German part. I bet there is a German KB profile out there somewhere... There was for the old BT Plugin app. for the 770. Perhaps it can be extracted from that?

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

I tried all types, also Generic 105.

It turns out that the HID profile is faulty in the qwertz version. My dealer will contact Thinkoutside now, lets see...

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Let me add that this is sort of nightmare. N800 needs repair due to touchscreen issues, BT keyboard needs to be replaced due to buggy hid implementation... What should I conclude from all this ?? And thanks for the hint !

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Hello,
you can download the Bluetooth plugin maemo-bt-plugin_*_armel.deb. It contains a file data.tar.gz which in turn contains a directory 'kb-maps'. There are several key mappings for the Stowaway in several languages (DE, ES, IT, US).
I don't know what to do with these map files, though.

Cheers, Volker.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Mapping keys is not the problem. Since Fn-green does not change the key code of several keys there is no chance to fix the problem. I checked 3 exemplars of this keyboard - same problem. Qwerty version does not suffer from this.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Does anyone know the xmod codes for application switching?
(switching between open apps via keybord)

I'm not even sure what "normal" keys do this and as my 770 is my only computer at the moment (travelling) I have no way to find out with xev anyway.

Something that would pop out the list of applications (left side of screen) would be nice too ;)

Thanks
Jim

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

I just got the Think Outside ultra-slim (sonoma) keyboard for my N800. It works well, but the apostrophe key is weird. If I hit it once, nothing happens. But when I then type a key it puts an accent. If I hit it twice, an apostrophe appears, but then the next letter ALSO has an accent. The same goes for the double-quote. I have to hit it twice, and then then next letter is ignored. Anyone have/solve this issue?

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

crackhead:
Not sure, but it sounds a bit like the keyboard layout could be set up with 'deadkeys' support (something I for the life of my can't understand the need for, but used for most default non-US keymaps for some reason). We desperately need the 'xmodmap' tool to check such things.. maybe someone knows where to find it? It's not on my N800.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Hi, where is this available from? I would like to try it out for my UK Stowaway.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Take a look here,

http://770.fs-security.com/maemo-bt-plugin/

-- Denis

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

I got the non ultra-slim version of the same keyboard and everything apepars to work fine... no problems with the dad keys above that you report. In the control panel for "Hardware Keyboard" I chose "Generic 105-key PC".

Now, my question has to do with how to input international characters and symbols. The above keyboard profile doe snot allow for that. is the accepted wisdom that one must create an xmodmap mapping for inputting chars not defined in the above keyboard profile?

Furthermore, it appears that when the hardware keyboard is connected the virtual keyboard is deactivated... thus, no possibility to input sy,bos and special characters.

-- Denis

P.S. Which files on the N800 control the input character mappings for hardware keyboards? The *.vkb files in /usr/share/keyboards are the mapping for the virtual keyboard.

Re: Mapping keys on a bt keyboard -- advice on how
 

Any news on this? It would be great to have a special profile for the new Apple slim BT keyboard, as the generic 105-key layout is not ideal. Some keys are not mapped at all, some are swapped etc.

By the way, choosing the Nokia SU-8W profile maps page-up/down to the left/right "cmd" keys on the Apple keyboard, which is nice; but it does mix up some of the special char keys so I switched back to generic 105.