xmodmap modifiers

[stephandale]

Hi all. I've a question about xmodmap modifiers...

Background

xmodmap specifies keycodes as a series of keysyms. From the man page... "The first keysym is used when no modifier key is pressed in conjunction with this key, the second with Shift, the third when the Mode_switch key is used with this key and the fourth when both the Mode_switch and Shift keys are used." As far as I can determine, the other keysyms are ignored.

xmodmap also allows you to specify modifiers mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4 and mod5.

Question

Does xmodmap specify these modifiers simply so they can be used by other applications, or is there a way of configuring how they're used from the xmodmap setup?

For example, I've got mod4 set to be Super_L, which is the Windows button on my keyboard. Is it possible to use xmodmap to configure the j key to send Left when combined with mod4?

Example

If I wanted Shift-j to send Left, I'd just put Left in the second position of j's keycode line:

keycode 44 = j Left j J ...

I'd like to do something similar with mod4/Super_L instead of Shift.

Thanks.
_________________
Stephan Dale
http://mindspill.net/computing/linux-notes/gentoo/
gentoo(a)mindspill.net

[stephandale]

I've found a partial solution. I could remap the Windows key to be the Mode_switch, allowing me to remap h j k l to Left Down Up Right (when holding the Windows key).

1. Use the xev command to determine the keycode of the Windows key. On my keyboard it's 133.
2. Map key 133 to Mode_switch.
3. Add the navigation commands to the keycodes for hjkl in my .Xmodmap, as follows...