# keymaps

## NAME



           keymaps - keyboard table descriptions for loadkeys and dumpkeys
    


## DESCRIPTION



           These files are used by loadkeys(1) to modify the translation
           tables used by the kernel keyboard driver and generated by
           dumpkeys(1) from those translation tables.
    
           The format of these files is vaguely similar to the one accepted
           by **xmodmap**(1).  The file consists of charset or key or string
           definition lines interspersed with comments.
    
           Comments are introduced with **!** or **#** characters and continue to
           the end of the line. Anything following one of these characters on
           that line is ignored. Note that comments need not begin from
           column one as with **xmodmap**(1).
    
           The syntax of keymap files is line oriented; a complete definition
           must fit on a single logical line. Logical lines can, however, be
           split into multiple physical lines by ending each subline with the
           backslash character (\).
    


## INCLUDE FILES



           A keymap can include other keymaps using the syntax
    
                  include "pathname"
    


## CHARSET DEFINITIONS



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


## COMPLETE KEYCODE DEFINITIONS



           Each complete key definition line is of the form:
    
                  **keycode** _keynumber_ **=**_keysym keysym keysym_...
    
           _keynumber_ is the internal identification number of the key,
           roughly equivalent to the scan code of it.  _keynumber_ can be given
           in decimal, octal or hexadecimal notation.  Octal is denoted by a
           leading zero and hexadecimal by the prefix **0x.**
    
           Each of the _keysyms_ represent keyboard actions, of which up to 256
           can be bound to a single key. The actions available include
           outputting character codes or character sequences, switching
           consoles or keymaps, booting the machine etc. (The complete list
           can be obtained from dumpkeys(1) by saying  **dumpkeys -l**.)
    
           Each _keysym_ may be prefixed by a '+' (plus sign), in which case
           this keysym is treated as a "letter" and therefore affected by the
           "CapsLock" the same way as by "Shift" (to be correct, the CapsLock
           inverts the Shift state).  The ASCII letters ('a'-'z' and 'A'-'Z')
           are made CapsLock'able by default.  If Shift+CapsLock should not
           produce a lower case symbol, put lines like
    
                  **keycode 30 = +a  A**
    
           in the map file.
    
           Which of the actions bound to a given key is taken when it is
           pressed depends on what modifiers are in effect at that moment.
           The keyboard driver supports 9 modifiers. These modifiers are
           labeled (completely arbitrarily) Shift, AltGr, Control, Alt,
           ShiftL, ShiftR, CtrlL, CtrlR and CapsShift.  Each of these
           modifiers has an associated weight of power of two according to
           the following table:
    
                  _modifier_
                         _weight_
    
                  Shift                  1
                  AltGr                  2
                  Control                4
                  Alt                    8
                  ShiftL                16
                  ShiftR                32
                  CtrlL                 64
                  CtrlR                128
                  CapsShift            256
    
           The effective action of a key is found out by adding up the
           weights of all the modifiers in effect. By default, no modifiers
           are in effect, so action number zero, i.e. the one in the first
           column in a key definition line, is taken when the key is pressed
           or released. When e.g. Shift and Alt modifiers are in effect,
           action number nine (from the 10th column) is the effective one.
    
           Changing the state of what modifiers are in effect can be achieved
           by binding appropriate key actions to desired keys. For example,
           binding the symbol Shift to a key sets the Shift modifier in
           effect when that key is pressed and cancels the effect of that
           modifier when the key is released. Binding AltGr_Lock to a key
           sets AltGr in effect when the key is pressed and cancels the
           effect when the key is pressed again.  (By default Shift, AltGr,
           Control and Alt are bound to the keys that bear a similar label;
           AltGr may denote the right Alt key.)
    
           Note that you should be very careful when binding the modifier
           keys, otherwise you can end up with an unusable keyboard mapping.
           If you for example define a key to have Control in its first
           column and leave the rest of the columns to be VoidSymbols, you're
           in trouble. This is because pressing the key puts Control modifier
           in effect and the following actions are looked up from the fifth
           column (see the table above). So, when you release the key, the
           action from the fifth column is taken. It has VoidSymbol in it, so
           nothing happens. This means that the Control modifier is still in
           effect, although you have released the key.  Re-pressing and
           releasing the key has no effect. To avoid this, you should always
           define all the columns to have the same modifier symbol. There is
           a handy short-hand notation for this, see below.
    
           _keysyms_ can be given in decimal, octal, hexadecimal, unicode or
           symbolic notation.  The numeric notations use the same format as
           with _keynumber_.  Unicode notation is "U+" followed by four
           hexadecimal digits.  The symbolic notation resembles that used by
           **xmodmap**(1).  Notable differences are the number symbols. The
           numeric symbols '0', ..., '9' of **xmodmap**(1) are replaced with the
           corresponding words 'zero', 'one', ... 'nine' to avoid confusion
           with the numeric notation.
    
           It should be noted that using numeric notation for the _keysyms_ is
           highly unportable as the key action numbers may vary from one
           kernel version to another and the use of numeric notations is thus
           strongly discouraged. They are intended to be used only when you
           know there is a supported keyboard action in your kernel for which
           your current version of loadkeys(1) has no symbolic name.
    
           There is a number of short-hand notations to add readability and
           reduce typing work and the probability of typing-errors.
    
           First of all, you can give a map specification line, of the form
    
                  keymaps 0-2,4-5,8,12
    
           to indicate that the lines of the keymap will not specify all 256
           columns, but only the indicated ones. (In the example: only the
           plain, Shift, AltGr, Control, Control+Shift, Alt and Control+Alt
           maps, that is, 7 columns instead of 256.)  When no such line is
           given, the keymaps 0-M will be defined, where M+1 is the maximum
           number of entries found in any definition line.
    
           Next, you can leave off any trailing VoidSymbol entries from a key
           definition line. VoidSymbol denotes a keyboard action which
           produces no output and has no other effects either. For example,
           to define key number 30 to output 'a' unshifted, 'A' when pressed
           with Shift and do nothing when pressed with AltGr or other
           modifiers, you can write
    
                  keycode  30 = a     A
    
           instead of the more verbose
    
                  keycode  30 = a     A    VoidSymbol     VoidSymbol \
                            VoidSymbol VoidSymbol VoidSymbol ...
    
           For added convenience, you can usually get off with still more
           terse definitions. If you enter a key definition line with only
           and exactly one action code after the equals sign, it has a
           special meaning. If the code (numeric or symbolic) is not an ASCII
           letter, it means the code is implicitly replicated through all
           columns being defined.  If, on the other hand, the action code is
           an ASCII character in the range 'a', ..., 'z' or 'A', ..., 'Z' in
           the ASCII collating sequence, the following definitions are made
           for the different modifier combinations, provided these are
           actually being defined.  (The table lists the two possible cases:
           either the single action code is a lower case letter, denoted by
           'x' or an upper case letter, denoted by 'Y'.)
    
               _modifier_
                      _symbol_
    
               none   x              Y
               Shift  X              y
               AltGr  x              Y
               Shift+AltGr
                      X              y
               Control
                      Control_x      Control_y
               Shift+Control
                      Control_x      Control_y
               AltGr+Control
                      Control_x      Control_y
               Shift+AltGr+Control
                      Control_x      Control_y
               Alt    Meta_x         Meta_Y
               Shift+Alt
                      Meta_X         Meta_y
               AltGr+Alt
                      Meta_x         Meta_Y
               Shift+AltGr+Alt
                      Meta_X         Meta_y
               Control+Alt
                      Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
               Shift+Control+Alt
                      Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
               AltGr+Control+Alt
                      Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
               Shift+AltGr+Control+Alt
                      Meta_Control_x Meta_Control_y
    


## SINGLE MODIFIER DEFINITIONS



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


## STRING DEFINITIONS



           In addition to comments and key definition lines, a keymap can
           contain string definitions. These are used to define what each
           function key action code sends. The syntax of string definitions
           is:
    
                  **string** _keysym_ **= "**_text_**"**
    
           _text_ can contain literal characters, octal character codes in the
           format of backslash followed by up to three octal digits, and the
           three escape sequences **\n** , **\\** , and **\"** , for newline, backslash and
           quote, respectively.
    


## COMPOSE DEFINITIONS



           Then there may also be compose definitions. They have syntax
    
                  **compose '**_char_**' '**_char_**' to '**_char_**'**
           and describe how two bytes are combined to form a third one (when
           a dead accent or compose key is used).  This is used to get
           accented letters and the like on a standard keyboard.
    


## ABBREVIATIONS



           Various abbreviations can be used with kbd-0.96 and later.
    
           **strings as usual**
                  Defines the usual values of the strings (but not the keys
                  they are bound to).
    
           **compose as usual for "iso-8859-1"**
                  Defines the usual compose combinations.
    
           To find out what _keysyms_ there are available for use in keymaps,
           use the command
    
                  **dumpkeys --long-info**
    
           Unfortunately, there is currently no description of what each
           symbol does. It has to be guessed from the name or figured out
           from the kernel sources.
    


## EXAMPLES



           (Be careful to use a keymaps line, like the first line of
           `dumpkeys`, or "keymaps 0-15" or so.)
    
           The following entry exchanges the left Control key and the Caps
           Lock key on the keyboard:
    
                  keycode  58 = Control
                  keycode  29 = Caps_Lock
    
           Key number 58 is normally the Caps Lock key, and key number 29 is
           normally the Control key.
    
           The following entry sets the Shift and Caps Lock keys to behave
           more nicely, like in older typewriters. That is, pressing Caps
           Lock key once or more sets the keyboard in CapsLock state and
           pressing either of the Shift keys releases it.
    
                  keycode  42 = Uncaps_Shift
                  keycode  54 = Uncaps_Shift
                  keycode  58 = Caps_On
    
           The following entry sets the layout of the edit pad in the
           enhanced keyboard to be more like that in the VT200 series
           terminals:
    
                  keycode 102 = Insert
                  keycode 104 = Remove
                  keycode 107 = Prior
                  shift keycode 107 = Scroll_Backward
                  keycode 110 = Find
                  keycode 111 = Select
                  control alt   keycode 111 = Boot
                  control altgr keycode 111 = Boot
    
           Here's an example to bind the string "du\ndf\n" to the key AltGr-
           D. We use the "spare" action code F100 not normally bound to any
           key.
    
                  altgr keycode 32 = F100
                  string F100 = "du\ndf\n"
    


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