1KEYMAPS(5)                    File Formats Manual                   KEYMAPS(5)
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NAME

6       keymaps - keyboard table descriptions for loadkeys and dumpkeys
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DESCRIPTION

9       These  files  are  used by loadkeys(1) to modify the translation tables
10       used by the kernel keyboard driver and generated  by  dumpkeys(1)  from
11       those translation tables.
12
13       The  format  of  these  files is vaguely similar to the one accepted by
14       xmodmap(1).  The file consists of charset or key or  string  definition
15       lines interspersed with comments.
16
17       Comments are introduced with !  or # characters and continue to the end
18       of the line. Anything following one of these characters on that line is
19       ignored.  Note  that  comments  need  not begin from column one as with
20       xmodmap(1).
21
22       The syntax of keymap files is line oriented; a complete definition must
23       fit on a single logical line. Logical lines can, however, be split into
24       multiple physical lines by ending each subline with the backslash char‐
25       acter (\).
26

INCLUDE FILES

28       A keymap can include other keymaps using the syntax
29
30              include "pathname"
31

CHARSET DEFINITIONS

33       A character set definition line is of the form:
34
35              charset "iso-8859-x"
36
37       It  defines  how following keysyms are to be interpreted.  For example,
38       in iso-8859-1 the  symbol  mu  (or  micro)  has  code  0265,  while  in
39       iso-8859-7 the letter mu has code 0354.
40

COMPLETE KEYCODE DEFINITIONS

42       Each complete key definition line is of the form:
43
44              keycode keynumber = keysym keysym keysym...
45
46       keynumber  is  the  internal  identification number of the key, roughly
47       equivalent to the scan code of it.  keynumber can be given in  decimal,
48       octal  or hexadecimal notation.  Octal is denoted by a leading zero and
49       hexadecimal by the prefix 0x.
50
51       Each of the keysyms represent keyboard actions, of which up to 256  can
52       be  bound  to  a  single  key. The actions available include outputting
53       character codes or character sequences, switching consoles or  keymaps,
54       booting  the machine etc. (The complete list can be obtained from dump‐
55       keys(1) by saying  dumpkeys -l .)
56
57       Each keysym may be prefixed by a '+' (plus sign),  in  wich  case  this
58       keysym  is  treated  as  a "letter" and therefore affected by the "Cap‐
59       sLock" the same way as by "Shift" (to be correct, the CapsLock  inverts
60       the  Shift  state).   The  ASCII letters ('a'-'z' and 'A'-'Z') are made
61       CapsLock'able by default.  If Shift+CapsLock should not produce a lower
62       case symbol, put lines like
63
64              keycode 30 = +a  A
65
66       in the map file.
67
68       Which  of  the actions bound to a given key is taken when it is pressed
69       depends on what modifiers are in effect at that moment.   The  keyboard
70       driver  supports  9  modifiers. These modifiers are labeled (completely
71       arbitrarily) Shift, AltGr, Control, Alt, ShiftL, ShiftR,  CtrlL,  CtrlR
72       and  CapsShift.   Each  of  these modifiers has an associated weight of
73       power of two according to the following table:
74
75
76              modifier            weight
77
78              Shift                  1
79              AltGr                  2
80              Control                4
81              Alt                    8
82              ShiftL                16
83              ShiftR                32
84              CtrlL                 64
85              CtrlR                128
86              CapsShift            256
87
88       The effective action of a key is found out by adding up the weights  of
89       all the modifiers in effect. By default, no modifiers are in effect, so
90       action number zero, i.e. the one in the first column in a  key  defini‐
91       tion  line,  is  taken  when  the key is pressed or released. When e.g.
92       Shift and Alt modifiers are in effect, action  number  nine  (from  the
93       10th column) is the effective one.
94
95       Changing  the  state of what modifiers are in effect can be achieved by
96       binding appropriate key actions to desired keys. For  example,  binding
97       the  symbol  Shift to a key sets the Shift modifier in effect when that
98       key is pressed and cancels the effect of that modifier when the key  is
99       released. Binding AltGr_Lock to a key sets AltGr in effect when the key
100       is pressed and cancels the effect when the key is pressed  again.   (By
101       default Shift, AltGr, Control and Alt are bound to the keys that bear a
102       similar label; AltGr may denote the right Alt key.)
103
104       Note that you should be very careful when binding  the  modifier  keys,
105       otherwise  you can end up with an unusable keyboard mapping. If you for
106       example define a key to have Control in its first column and leave  the
107       rest  of  the  columns  to  be  VoidSymbols, you're in trouble. This is
108       because pressing the key puts Control modifier in effect and  the  fol‐
109       lowing  actions  are  looked  up  from  the fifth column (see the table
110       above). So, when you release the key, the action from the fifth  column
111       is  taken. It has VoidSymbol in it, so nothing happens. This means that
112       the Control modifier is still in effect, although you have released the
113       key.   Re-pressing  and releasing the key has no effect. To avoid this,
114       you should always define all the columns to have the same modifier sym‐
115       bol. There is a handy short-hand notation for this, see below.
116
117       keysyms  can  be  given in decimal, octal, hexadecimal, unicode or sym‐
118       bolic notation.  The numeric notations use  the  same  format  as  with
119       keynumber.   Unicode notation is "U+" followed by four hexadecimal dig‐
120       its.  The symbolic notation resembles that used by xmodmap(1).  Notable
121       differences  are  the number symbols. The numeric symbols '0', ..., '9'
122       of xmodmap(1) are replaced with the corresponding words 'zero',  'one',
123       ... 'nine' to avoid confusion with the numeric notation.
124
125       It  should  be  noted  that  using  numeric notation for the keysyms is
126       highly unportable as the key action numbers may vary  from  one  kernel
127       version  to  another  and the use of numeric notations is thus strongly
128       discouraged. They are intended to be used only when you know there is a
129       supported keyboard action in your kernel for which your current version
130       of loadkeys(1) has no symbolic name.
131
132       There is a number of short-hand notations to add readability and reduce
133       typing work and the probability of typing-errors.
134
135       First of all, you can give a map specification line, of the form
136
137              keymaps 0-2,4-5,8,12
138
139       to  indicate that the lines of the keymap will not specify all 256 col‐
140       umns, but only the indicated ones. (In the  example:  only  the  plain,
141       Shift,  AltGr,  Control,  Control+Shift, Alt and Control+Alt maps, that
142       is, 7 columns instead of 256.)  When no such line is given, the keymaps
143       0-M  will  be defined, where M+1 is the maximum number of entries found
144       in any definition line.
145
146       Next, you can leave off any trailing VoidSymbol entries from a key def‐
147       inition  line.  VoidSymbol  denotes a keyboard action which produces no
148       output and has no other effects either. For example, to define key num‐
149       ber  30  to  output  'a'  unshifted, 'A' when pressed with Shift and do
150       nothing when pressed with AltGr or other modifiers, you can write
151
152              keycode  30 = a     A
153
154       instead of the more verbose
155
156              keycode  30 = a     A    VoidSymbol     VoidSymbol \
157                        VoidSymbol VoidSymbol VoidSymbol ...
158
159       For added convenience, you can usually get off with  still  more  terse
160       definitions.  If  you enter a key definition line with only and exactly
161       one action code after the equals sign, it has a special meaning. If the
162       code (numeric or symbolic) is not an ASCII letter, it means the code is
163       implicitly replicated through all columns being defined.   If,  on  the
164       other  hand,  the  action  code is an ASCII character in the range 'a',
165       ..., 'z' or 'A', ..., 'Z' in the ASCII collating sequence, the  follow‐
166       ing  definitions are made for the different modifier combinations, pro‐
167       vided these are actually being defined.  (The table lists the two  pos‐
168       sible  cases:  either  the  single  action code is a lower case letter,
169       denoted by 'x' or an upper case letter, denoted by 'Y'.)
170
171           modifier                symbol
172
173           none                    x              Y
174           Shift                   X              y
175           AltGr                   x              Y
176           Shift+AltGr             X              y
177           Control                 Control_x      Control_y
178           Shift+Control           Control_x      Control_y
179           AltGr+Control           Control_x      Control_y
180           Shift+AltGr+Control     Control_x      Control_y
181           Alt                     Meta_x         Meta_Y
182           Shift+Alt               Meta_X         Meta_y
183           AltGr+Alt               Meta_x         Meta_Y
184           Shift+AltGr+Alt         Meta_X         Meta_y
185           Control+Alt             Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
186           Shift+Control+Alt       Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
187           AltGr+Control+Alt       Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
188           Shift+AltGr+Control+Alt Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
189

SINGLE MODIFIER DEFINITIONS

191       All the previous forms of key definition lines always  define  all  the
192       M+1  possible  modifier  combinations  being  defined, whether the line
193       actually contains that many action codes or not.  There is, however,  a
194       variation  of the definition syntax for defining only single actions to
195       a particular modifier combination of a key. This is especially  useful,
196       if  you load a keymap which doesn't match your needs in only some modi‐
197       fier combinations, like AltGr+function keys. You can then make a  small
198       local  file  redefining only those modifier combinations and loading it
199       after the main file.  The syntax of this form is:
200
201       { plain | <modifier sequence> } keycode keynumber = keysym
202
203       , e.g.,
204              plain keycode 14 = BackSpace
205              control alt keycode 83 = Boot
206              alt keycode 105 = Decr_Console
207              alt keycode 106 = Incr_Console
208       Using "plain" will define only the base entry of a key  (i.e.  the  one
209       with  no  modifiers  in effect) without affecting the bindings of other
210       modifier combinations of that key.
211

STRING DEFINITIONS

213       In addition to comments and key definition lines, a keymap can  contain
214       string  definitions.  These  are  used to define what each function key
215       action code sends. The syntax of string definitions is:
216
217              string keysym = "text"
218
219       text can contain literal characters, octal character codes in the  for‐
220       mat  of  backslash  followed by up to three octal digits, and the three
221       escape sequences \n, \\, and \",  for  newline,  backslash  and  quote,
222       respectively.
223

COMPOSE DEFINITIONS

225       Then there may also be compose definitions. They have syntax
226
227              compose 'char' 'char' to 'char'
228       and  describe  how  two  bytes are combined to form a third one (when a
229       dead accent or compose key is used).  This is used to get accented let‐
230       ters and the like on a standard keyboard.
231

ABBREVIATIONS

233       Various abbreviations can be used with kbd-0.96 and later.
234
235       strings as usual
236              Defines  the  usual values of the strings (but not the keys they
237              are bound to).
238
239       compose as usual for "iso-8859-1"
240              Defines the usual compose combinations.
241
242       To find out what keysyms there are available for use  in  keymaps,  use
243       the command
244
245              dumpkeys --long-info
246
247       Unfortunately,  there  is  currently no description of what each symbol
248       does. It has to be guessed from the name or figured out from the kernel
249       sources.
250

EXAMPLES

252       (Be  careful  to use a keymaps line, like the first line of `dumpkeys`,
253       or "keymaps 0-15" or so.)
254
255       The following entry exchanges the left Control key and  the  Caps  Lock
256       key on the keyboard:
257
258              keycode  58 = Control
259              keycode  29 = Caps_Lock
260
261       Key  number 58 is normally the Caps Lock key, and key number 29 is nor‐
262       mally the Control key.
263
264       The following entry sets the Shift and Caps Lock keys  to  behave  more
265       nicely, like in older typewriters. That is, pressing Caps Lock key once
266       or more sets the keyboard in CapsLock state and pressing either of  the
267       Shift keys releases it.
268
269              keycode  42 = Uncaps_Shift
270              keycode  54 = Uncaps_Shift
271              keycode  58 = Caps_On
272
273       The  following  entry  sets  the layout of the edit pad in the enhanced
274       keyboard to be more like that in the VT200 series terminals:
275
276              keycode 102 = Insert
277              keycode 104 = Remove
278              keycode 107 = Prior
279              shift keycode 107 = Scroll_Backward
280              keycode 110 = Find
281              keycode 111 = Select
282              control alt   keycode 111 = Boot
283              control altgr keycode 111 = Boot
284
285       Here's an example to bind the string "du\ndf\n" to the key AltGr-D.  We
286       use the "spare" action code F100 not normally bound to any key.
287
288              altgr keycode 32 = F100
289              string F100 = "du\ndf\n"
290

SEE ALSO

292       loadkeys(1), dumpkeys(1), showkey(1), xmodmap(1)
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296                                 24 April 1998                      KEYMAPS(5)
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