Semi-OT: Perl keymap in X

[Brent Royal-Gordon]

I'm getting settled into a desktop Linux installation after spending
most of my life running Windows. (Yay for escaping the monopoly.) One
thing that I'm having trouble working out is key remapping. On my
Windows configuration, I had put together and installed a custom keymap
which turned the top-row number keys on my US QWERTY keyboard into the
corresponding punctuation characters (i.e. pressing "1" without shifting
gives "!", 2 without shifting gives "@", etc.). This is actually an
amazing help when writing Perl, because all those dollars and ats and
percents and comments don't require use of the shift key.

However, I can't figure out how to do the equivalent in X Windows. I
know that it's less involved than Windows--I just don't know how to do
it. Can anyone help me, or at least point me to the appropriate docs?
If it's important, I'm running Ubuntu Linux, which uses Gnome 2.10 and
X.org 6.8. At this point, I'm using Eclipse with EPIC for development,
although if anyone knows of a better tool (not vim or emacs, something
that'll make a Visual Studio/Visual Perl user feel welcome), feel free
to drop me an e-mail.

--Brent 'Dax' Royal-Gordon <brent at brentdax dot com>
Perl and Parrot hacker

 

[Anno Siegel]

I'm getting settled into a desktop Linux installation after spending
most of my life running Windows. (Yay for escaping the monopoly.) One
thing that I'm having trouble working out is key remapping. On my
Windows configuration, I had put together and installed a custom keymap
which turned the top-row number keys on my US QWERTY keyboard into the
corresponding punctuation characters (i.e. pressing "1" without shifting
gives "!", 2 without shifting gives "@", etc.). This is actually an
amazing help when writing Perl, because all those dollars and ats and
percents and comments don't require use of the shift key.

However, I can't figure out how to do the equivalent in X Windows. I
know that it's less involved than Windows--I just don't know how to do
it. Can anyone help me, or at least point me to the appropriate docs?

That's done with xmodmap. Also look at xev in case you need to
determine what key generates what key code. You will eventually
end up with an .Xmodmap resource file in your home directory that
describes your key mapping.

Anno