Re: OT: windowmaker's language button

[Dirk Olmes]

> On 2003-12-10 15:58:26 -0600 Alexander V. Diemand
> <alexander.diemand@isb-sib.ch> wrote:
>
>> Yep, me too I was searching the web yesterday for hours to find out what
>> this
>> changes. It does nothing at all!
>> At least, this is my conclusion after all. I hope I am wrong.
>> The only visible effect is in Lyx where this button changes to some
>> other
>> keyboard layout, maybe greek letters.
>> The only way to find out more would be 1) ask people at WindowMaker's
>> list (I
>> did not yet) 2) read their source code.
>> I am very much interested if someone could come up with a solution for
>> the
>> configuration of this "feature".
>
> I did ask at windowmaker's irc channel, one guy that was there (it doesn't
> have much activity) didn't know.  I searched the list archives and there's
> one message asking the same exact question, no answers; but in other
> messages there's talk about xmodmap and xkd which seem like good
> alternatives.

I stumbled over this one, too some time ago. Didn't find out anything
WindowMaker specific either but while I was searching I found an xkb
feature that will let you switch the keyboard:

-------------------- excerpt from XF86Config -----------------------------
Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Keyboard0"
    Driver "keyboard"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us,de"
    Option "XkbOptions" "grp:alt_shift_toggle"
EndSection
-------------------- end of excerpt ---------------------------------------

The important ones are the "Option" entries: the first one specifies the
languages for the keyboard, primary I use the us layout but occasionally I
switch over to german layout (e.g. when writing mails). The second option
enables switching keyboard layouts with Alt-Shift (just like with
Windows).

IIRC you can specify more than two languages but the key-combo for
switching seems to be hard-coded.

I found this in a README.config which resides in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb on
my gentoo machine ...

HTH,

-dirk

-- 
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