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From: Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com>
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: how to make the pause key switch keyboard variants?
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2025 22:41:54 -0300
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Winston <wbe@UBEBLOCK.psr.com.invalid> writes:

> Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> posted:
>>>> I wish I could toggle the variant using the pause key and not the menu
>>>> key as it is currently set on my OpenBSD system---see below.
>
> to which I replied:
>>> I'm not sure, but this sounds more like something xmodmap(1) would do.
>>> man xmodmap.
>
>>> However, since I usually see "Pause" as "Break"+Shift on keyboards, you
>>> may need to look at references to Break's keycode as well as Pause.

Thanks.  I was able to get it to work.  I used xev to figure out what
was the keycode of pause and the menu key.  I discovered that the pause
key issues the keycode 135 when pressed, and menu key, keycode 117.  So
the following commands disable the menu key and makes the pause key
behave like the menu key:

xmodmap -e 'keycode 135 = ISO_Next_Group'
xmodmap -e 'keycode 117 = VoidSymbol'

Now, what I'm puzzled about is that I add these commands to .xsession,
which I'm positive that xenodm runs when I log in, but it takes no
effect.

Another puzzling thing that's going on here, which might be totally
unrelated, is that my Firefox stopped translating 'c into ç.  The toggle
to make this translation happen is the environment variable

  GTK_IM_MODULE=cedilla

which is sourced in my .xsession.  So much so that when I run uxterm and
then run firefox from it, I get ç when I press 'c.  And I don't know how
this started to happen because I had Firefox behaving as expected for
quite a while here and I can't identify what it is that I changed to get
me to this situation.

This may possibly due to xenodm.  I was running startx for some time and
I eventually switched to running xenodm.  

> vallor <vallor@cultnix.org> then replied:
>> xev(1) shows the keycode on my Linux system:
>>
>> KeyPress event,
>> [...]  state 0x10, keycode 127 (keysym 0xff13, Pause), same_screen YES,
>
> I see the same keycode and keysym for Pause, but on "PC" type keyboards,
> I see "Pause" printed above "Break" on the key label, and one has to
> hold down a Shift key when pressing that key to get Pause.
>
> Either way, I was just a bit surprised when it sounded like Salvador
> seemed to be saying he has a keyboard where Pause doesn't require Shift.

That's right.  No shift required for pause.  I have a DURGOD Taurus K310
with a numeric keypad.  Here's what xev reports when I press pause.
(That's before I run the xmodmap commands I mentioned above.)

KeyPress event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x1e00001,
    root 0x607, subw 0x0, time 904643, (89,89), root:(824,435),
    state 0x10, keycode 135 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x1e00001,
    root 0x607, subw 0x0, time 904693, (89,89), root:(824,435),
    state 0x10, keycode 135 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Thanks!