Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

after much googling, reading the wiki, and some pm help from members here, I feel I have a usable keyboard.

my xterm bottom screen "strip" now reads
pointer, tab, esc, . (period), >, |, -, /

my rational was, get the period up there so you can hit fn x 2 to lock number pad, and then you can easily type and ip address (say for ssh or ping) without annoyingly having to hit stuff individually. the -, and / now mean no more stretching and hitting fn to go into the directory structure (like cd'ing into the the structure) and now putting options such as ls -ltr is much faster (no more fn plus stretch to the f key).

then on the hardware keyboard I mapped, whatever the hell is above the z to a `(backtick), whatever the hell is above the c to a ^, the v fn to the < symbol (don't need / as it is now on the far right of the bottom screen strip), left arrow shift to [, right arrow shift to ], left arrow fn to {, right arrow fn to }, shift down arrow to % and up arrow shift to ~. Finally I have fn up arrow and fn down arrow mapped to page up and page down.

honestly I don't foresee having to hit fn/sym to get to the symbols any time soon and simply traversing the directory structure and putting options on commands is much faster due to / and - on the far right of the bottom strip of the virtual keys.

now I feel I actually have a chance to learn on the device, shell scripting and perhaps perl in the debian chroot. things are just so much faster.

anyway just thought I'd share, and advocate anyone really wanting to use the device for command line stuff, mod the hardware and software terminal keys to your liking....it will really open up the device to you...

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

How about sharing how you did it the rest us.
I have a lot of the same issues so tell me how you did it and I can customize from your work.

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

Do a Power Search on the words:
key bar xterm
and find nemerous discussions of this, including this thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=34926

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

I will give a description as well as post the configs that I needed to change, tomorrow.

Its gone from a nuisance, to a usable command line to me making these changes...of course it will never be as good as a full keyboard, but its is now much more functional, I would have to think also easy access now to {} and [] would be good for programmers.

I really hated fn sym, that and having to stretch with fn f for - and fn v for / were killing me....

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

I read everything and it still took some figuring out (for example page up and page down simply don't work mapped to shift up and down arrow, they only work with fn up and down).

anyways I will post exactly what worked for me (like a dummies version) tomorrow.

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

if you could help us out.. if will be a very great help.... cos i dun wanna press here and there just to do a simple task... hehe...

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

ok I am going to start typing up exact steps and pasting my configs. of course what I am putting is my own preferences, and as of how I have it set, I pretty much cannot access the thing above he z (is that the pound) and the thing above the c (the euro?) so this will be a decidedly american keyboard...

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

first the hardware keyboard changes.

first review this so you know what is what...
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/List_of_keysyms

please note it seems that page up is Page_Up and page down is
Page_Down on this device, which does not correspond to the above keymap wiki...

1) open terminal become root
2) back up the following file (step 3 file, the rx-51) to a place NOT in the nokia_vndr directory
3) vi or editor of choice /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51
4) look for the line "english_base" (its like 80% into the file)

you will see different values then what I have for the rows that specify c, z and space. you will see I changed my c value to asciicircum and my v value to grave. this will change the fn function of those 2 keys (c and v) so they will use z=` and c=^. again if you are an english or european chap you might decide you need those funny symbols, I don't. then go to the line that has spce and and you will see two instances of the word "space". change the second one to the symbol of your choice and that will then work with shift space. as you can see mine is for asciitilde which means ~.

partial hidden alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "english_base" {

// 1. row
key <AD01> { [ q, Q, 1, 1 ] };
key <AD02> { [ w, W, 2, 2 ] };
key <AD03> { [ e, E, 3, 3 ] };
key <AD04> { [ r, R, 4, 4 ] };
key <AD05> { [ t, T, 5, 5 ] };
key <AD06> { [ y, Y, 6, 6 ] };
key <AD07> { [ u, U, 7, 7 ] };
key <AD08> { [ i, I, 8, 8 ] };
key <AD09> { [ o, O, 9, 9 ] };
key <AD10> { [ p, P, 0, 0 ] };
key <AB08> { [ comma, semicolon, equal, equal ] };

// 2. row
key <AC01> { [ a, A, asterisk, asterisk ] };
key <AC02> { [ s, S, plus, plus ] };
key <AC03> { [ d, D, numbersign, numbersign ] };
key <AC04> { [ f, F, minus, minus ] };
key <AC05> { [ g, G, underscore, underscore ] };
key <AC06> { [ h, H, parenleft, parenleft ] };
key <AC07> { [ j, J, parenright, parenright ] };
key <AC08> { [ k, K, ampersand, ampersand ] };
key <AC09> { [ l, L, exclam, exclam ] };
key <AB09> { [ period, colon, question, question ] };

// 3. row
key <AB01> { [ z, Z, grave, grave ] };
key <AB02> { [ x, X, dollar, dollar ] };
key <AB03> { [ c, C, asciicircum, asciicircum ] };
key <AB04> { [ v, V, slash, slash ] };
key <AB05> { [ b, B, backslash, backslash ] };
key <AB06> { [ n, N, quotedbl, quotedbl ] };
key <AB07> { [ m, M, apostrophe, apostrophe ] };
key <SPCE> { [ space, asciitilde, at, at ] };
};


4) go to the end of the file and you will see the last section. you can see I have it commented out (I did both // and # but I'm sure that // works as that is how things are commented in the rest of the file). now you can simply paste the last section in if you want the key bindings I took. I basically modified the stuff I found here to my liking http://wiki.maemo.org/Remapping_keyboard they bind things to the four arrow keys (on the bottom right), since by default these arrow keys have no shift or fn capabilities. what my config equates to is the following:

shift right = [
shift left = ]
fn left = {
fn right = }

shift up = <
shift down = %
fn up = page up
fn down = page down



//#partial hidden alphanumeric_keys
//#xkb_symbols "arrows_4btns" {
//# // standard arrows mapping
//# // normal 2nd level must not be enumerated to allow text selection with Shift key
//# key <UP> { type[Group1] = "ONE_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Up ] };
//# key <LEFT> { type[Group1] = "ONE_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Left ] };
//# key <DOWN> { type[Group1] = "ONE_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Down ] };
//# key <RGHT> { type[Group1] = "ONE_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Right ] };
//#};


partial hidden alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "arrows_4btns" {
key <UP> { type[Group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Up, less, Page_Up, Page_Up ] };
key <LEFT> { type[Group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Left, bracketleft, braceleft, braceleft ] };
key <DOWN> { type[Group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Down, percent, Page_Down, Page_Down ] };
key <RGHT> { type[Group1] = "FOUR_LEVEL", symbols[Group1] = [ Right, bracketright, braceright, braceright ] };
};


5) when you have things to your liking, exit the file and run setxkbmap from the terminal.





Now for the virtual keyboard strip. My logic (if you are interested) is as follows. the period is needed when typing ip addresses, so now you can just hit fn twice to lock keys and go 192.168.1.5 (or whatever) quickly since the period does not require you to unlock the fn function. the > and | are of course linux staples and should be easily accessable. the - and / are a major pain on the hardware keyboard, requiring stretches to the f and v keys and requiring fn. I have found / and - (for directory navigation and putting options on commands) are the things I do most, so they go on the right of the virtual strip. so bla bla bla here is how I did it...

run these 2 commands. you can substitute your own values, remember, the top command is the official key names (you can see them here, thanks btw Patola for the info http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/List_of_keysyms and the second value is what you will actually see or click on. for example below, greater in the first command maps to > in the second command

gconftool-2 --set --type list --list-type=string /apps/osso/xterm/keys '[Tab,Escape,period,greater,bar,minus,slash]'

gconftool-2 --set --type list --list-type=string /apps/osso/xterm/key_labels '[Tab,Esc,.,>,|,-,/]'

and you are done....

please remember before doing anything to make appropriate backups.

the section at the end of the rx-51 file that I commented out, perhaps can simply be removed, but since I was not sure I just commented it.

again these are my keyboard and virtual keyboard shortcuts, I think they are good but substitute your own values. remember I used the c an z keys for different fn values, but if you need that european stuff, I guess keek it.

hope this helps, I believe if you wanted my actual setup you would be ok actually pasting in my changes as they are exactly what I put.....but of course I cannot guarantee anything.

final note, I did try binding page up and page down to shift up arrow and shift down arrow, but for whatever reason that would not work, page up and page down needed to be binded to fn up arrow and fn down arrow.

hope this helps someone really start to unlock their keyboard...

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

hi, i found that the fullscreen button not laid on the last column, any hints for that ?

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

For me it is best to leave the shift arrow keys alone because I use them to select text or items in a list. In many editors (e.g., Geany) if you hold shift and move the cursor with the arrows it selects text. But this stops working if you remap the shift-arrow keys.

I also mapped the fn keys to the alt/shift numbers.

Re: Finally happy with my xterm keyboard layout
 

Glad I made this thread as I had to reflash everything and need to set up the custom terminal key again...time to find out if I typed it correctly before :)...To think it actually made sense to me at one point :)