ISO_Level3_Shift vs Mode_switch (was: Howto handle modified keys)

[Daniel Stone]

On Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 06:50:46PM +0200, Edgar Toernig wrote:
> This reminds me of a problem recently discussed on the icewm
> mailing list.  There was a request to support AltGr in icewm.
> Usually, AltGr is mapped to Mode_switch and the patch was looking
> for a key with that symbol.  But it seems that nowadays some
> keymaps put the symbol ISO_Level3_Shift on that key.  There
> was even one report where a key-press gives Mode_switch and
> the corresponding key-release gives ISO_Level3_Shift[1].

Level3 Shift explicitly moves into ... well, level three.  Shift
increments the current shift level by one, level 3 sets the base shift
level to three, so level 3 + shift shifts up to four.  This is essential
in European keymaps.

Mode_switch switches to another group, of which there are not very many.
Having the one layout in only one group, as opposed to multiple groups
(you can't have layouts with more than two levels in a multi-group
system), is infinitely more sensible.

Cheers,
Daniel
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