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    PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency

    • Started by juice43
    • 5 Replies:
    • Reputation: 1
    • From: New York, New York
    • Registered: 22-Nov-2008
    • Posts: 130
    03-Dec-2009 04:42:50#1 PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency

    I've used Colemak on all three major operating systems: Windows, Linux, and Mac. Now using PKL on Windows was the easiest solution for me since at login it maps everything perfectly to Colemak with the additional bonus of Shift + CapsLock Backspace = CapsLock.

    Now on Linux there was no way to have a CapsLock and I could never get the Backspace to repeat the way I wanted. Because if I used the xset r 66 code, then whenever pressing it, it would delete two keys at a time, and that was not the mechanism I wanted. Now when typing on a Mac, Colemak is implemented nicely as well, but I could never get the damn CapsLock Backspace to work at all.

    So whenever switching there would be that inconsistency of things not working the same way, unlike the regular Backspace that is tightly integrated and works excellently everywhere.

    So I just decided to use the regular Backspace and enjoy the pleasures of the Caps Lock key once more.
    On Linux I just used a script to change CapsLockBackspace to Caps Lock. On Mac I did nothing. But on Windows, I want to know what options to change in the default PKL to make it so that Caps Lock remains Caps Lock. Could anyone help me out with that?

    Colemak typist

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    • Registered: 14-Sep-2009
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    03-Dec-2009 08:14:50#2 Re: PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency

    I'm pretty sure PKL turns Caps Lock on, then immediately off every time you use it. I could be very wrong, but I think circumventing the Caps Lock in PKL is a broken trick.

    *E: Wow. I totally didn't answer your question.

    Last edited by RevRal (03-Dec-2009 09:09:40)
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    • From: Viken, Norway
    • Registered: 13-Dec-2006
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    03-Dec-2009 09:35:51#3 Re: PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency

    In the layout.ini file in your preferred layout's folder you can quite easily see the line that starts with 'CapsLock' and put a semicolon before it. That should take care of business. Or you could go advanced like me and Farkas and use the CapsLock as an 'extend' key for all sorts of cool stuff.

    But then you'll find yourself missing this great functionality whenever you're not using Windows...   :)

    *** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
    *** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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    • From: Belgium
    • Registered: 26-Feb-2008
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    03-Dec-2009 21:08:32#4 Re: PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency
    juice43 said:

    Now on Linux there was no way to have a CapsLock and I could never get the Backspace to repeat the way I wanted. Because if I used the xset r 66 code, then whenever pressing it, it would delete two keys at a time, and that was not the mechanism I wanted.

    As far as I know, it is indeed not possible to make eg. Shift-[key] or AltGr-[key] act as Caps Lock on Linux/X11, because a key either acts as a modifier key "as a whole" (all shift levels), or not.  It's very easy though to assign Caps Lock to another dedicated key instead, eg. Scroll Lock.

    I don't like the Shift+Backspace = Caps Lock idea anyway, because it gets in my way when typing an all-caps word (pressing Shift) and using Backspace in the middle.  Perhaps AltGr+Backspace would be a better candidate for Caps Lock, because you don't usually type sequences of AltGr combinations.  But I don't really need a Caps Lock key anyway.

    As for "xset r 66", it should work just like that...  What distro are you using?

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    • From: New York, New York
    • Registered: 22-Nov-2008
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    03-Dec-2009 23:16:16#5 Re: PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency

    On Mac, I could never get the key working properly due to the difficult install. Plus I know that the iMac has that delay for the Caps Lock key which the new Backspace key would inherit.

    On Linux (I use Ubuntu and Arch Linux specifically) both of which Colemak come with. The issue was that the default CapsLockBackspace does not repeat. So I type xset r 66 in terminal to make it repeat. But when you press it just once, it backspaces TWO characters. That totally messes me up compared to Windows PKL that makes the new Backspace work identically like the first. Even if that's the way its supposed to work on Linux deleting two keys, why does the other Backspace work just fine. So I just stuck to using the other one.

    So on Mac and Linux I don't use the CapsLockBackspace which I want to keep consistent on Windows. Dreymar's semicolon before the CapsLock works perfect, now it all works. Funny what one character can do. Everything is well again.

    Thanks for the help guys.

    Colemak typist

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    • From: Belgium
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    04-Dec-2009 07:54:51#6 Re: PKL keeps Caps Lock: A search for consistency
    juice43 said:

    Plus I know that the iMac has that delay for the Caps Lock key which the new Backspace key would inherit.

    That's a hardware problem with the Apple aluminium keyboard.  I have one and when connected to my NetBSD PC, it has the same problem.  It's a stupid trick to avoid accidental Caps Lock presses?  The previous Apple keyboard doesn't do this.

    On Linux (I use Ubuntu and Arch Linux specifically) both of which Colemak come with. The issue was that the default CapsLockBackspace does not repeat. So I type xset r 66 in terminal to make it repeat. But when you press it just once, it backspaces TWO characters. That totally messes me up compared to Windows PKL that makes the new Backspace work identically like the first. Even if that's the way its supposed to work on Linux deleting two keys, why does the other Backspace work just fine. So I just stuck to using the other one.

    No, that's not the way it is supposed to work.  Apparantly this is an Ubuntu specific problem, we've seen similar problem reports about Colemak on Ubuntu (and the derivative Linux Mint), they must have changed something and messed it up some way or another.  But I'm surprised you mention Arch Linux, there it works fine for me.  In fact, any Linux/BSD shipping standard X.org should behave correctly.

    Can you show me the output of "xmodmap" in an xterm?

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