May I rework XKB ?

[Peter Hutterer]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 01:26:10PM +0100, Dirk Wallenstein wrote:
> > what would be the difference to having an additional group that triggers
> > only those "shortcut" keysyms (XF86Back, XF86Forward, XF86Whatnot)?
> 
> None. The point of this example together with the example 3 is that I
> would like to make the functionalities the window managers offer
> easily available, say, to the 10 fingered office worker.
> shortcuts for switching applications and desktops is just one example. 
> 
> I, for example, have a usual western keyboard with this huge space-bar
> and the lack of modifiers at the tips of my pointing fingers. Now, with
> the need for Shift, Control, Alt and AltGr on each side of the space
> bar there's no space left for a group switch and so I have all sorts
> of two-modifier-plus-trigger-key shortcuts to use WM functionality. My
> next keyboard will be an Asian one, where they have separate keys for
> the pointing finger in the lowest row. I would like to enable the
> aforementioned office worker (well, I could use that too, then), to
> configure these keys as he likes.
> 
> The gist is that it should not be necessary to edit keymaps manually,
> and accomplish things that are simply not possible by means or
> rearranging keysyms.

[...]

> But honestly, I think it would be a real improvement if users could
> define their own keymaps with the full range of tools that XKB
> provides.

I skipped the other parts, because your last sentence sums it up perfectly:
we need better configuration tools. XKB from a users POV suffers more from
the lack of configuration tools, less so from the protoco/implementation.

For what you seem to be proposing in this thread, the focus should thus be
on the client application to enable flexible (and persistent) custom
configuration. Think of an XKB-aware xmodmap, that will be the core of it.

Once that application is working, we can re-visit and see what actual
deficiencies are in the protocol/implementation. I still think you can
can get about 80-90% there without having to touch XKB (the protocol)
itself.

However, the XKB implementation certainly isn't without fail so don't
hesitate to submit patches that improve it. 

Cheers,
  Peter