[Sugar-devel] Keyboard Function-Special Buttons

[James Cameron]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 01:35:34PM -0500, John Tierney wrote:
> Is it possible to take these functions from F1, F2, F3 and map
> these to special separate buttons?

Yes.  sugar.git/src/jarabe/view/keyhandler.py connects "F1" to zoom_mesh
for example.  It could easily be changed to some other standard key.
Changing to a non-standard key that only exists on one keyboard model on
the planet is difficult but not impossible.

> If possible: How hard of a task technically? 

Given a keyboard, no more than a few hours.  There are several ways of
doing it.  There are several software layers involved.

Then you have to figure out how to tell Sugar what sort of keyboard you
have.  Keyboards don't often identify themselves enough.  That suggests
the addition of a keyboard chooser.  That's perhaps more than a few
hours.

It might be better from an architecture perspective to use a
standard keyboard mapping and change the key legends and physical
positions.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/