Key mapped as Meta key?

[Craig 1,435]

I've been spamming this all over the forum cuz I want everyone to want it too since I first learned about it.   If they reassign a key as meta (ideally the Fx-tec key), then we get global android app shortcuts (meta+letter, unrelated to the longpress letter in the stock launcher).  Then, you could use any launcher you want and still have shortcuts - and start them without having to go back to the launcher home screen.

Other than that, the other thing Chen shared at one point they were considering making their own symbol picker for the Sym key, but dunno if that was part of the launcher or something independent.  As opposed to that I'm hoping they just make Sym key into right-alt, then I think it'll bring up a symbol picker like how left alt brings up emoji keyboard.  That may be part of gboard tho, not aosp... still learning as I go along....

[EskeRahn 5,471]

2 minutes ago, Craig said:

I've been spamming this all over the forum cuz I want everyone to want it too since I first learned about it.   If they reassign a key as meta (ideally the Fx-tec key), then we get global android app shortcuts (meta+letter, unrelated to the longpress letter in the stock launcher).

It would be better to let the yellow arrow do Meta rather than Fn. As this will allow for sticky if Full is changed to Alpha, See other thread.

[Craig 1,435]

7 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

It would be better to let the yellow arrow do Meta rather than Fn. As this will allow for sticky if Full is changed to Alpha, See other thread.

It would still be sticky on the Fx-tec key - and note the sticky part doesn't work for the built-in Android keyboard shortcuts, those only work in combination.  For that reason alone, I see the advantage, cuz keys you have to hold together it's nice to have on both sides.

But I have other plans in mind for those yellow arrow keys, and it is confirmed that unlike shift/control, the left and right are separate in hardware.    Once they're separate in kernel, I plan to make the right one my slash/questionmark key.  The left one can be 3rd level modifier for us-intl, but we don't have any modifier keycodes left to use for it that I know of.  And in my case, as I only use it occasionally for the ocasional symbol, its not a big deal to not be sticky, just a minor inconvenience.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Craig

[EskeRahn 5,471]

7 hours ago, Craig said:

It would still be sticky on the Fx-tec key

The point is that sticky to get to symbols would be much more important than two clicks shortcuts (IMHO). Especially if they { F(x)tec } do not want shift to double to the access above the digits.

[Craig 1,435]

I dunno who they is, but the only key I expect for symbols on the digits is shift.  Dont need that functionality doubled unless you mean the other shift key, which I guess is a dupe since both are left shift, so cant avoid it even if desired.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Craig

[EskeRahn 5,471]

4 minutes ago, Craig said:

I dunno who they is, but I only need shift for symbols on the digits.  Dont need that functionality doubled unless you mean the other shift key, which I guess is a dupe since both are left shift, so cant avoid it.

Sorry if my English is unclear. I meant that if the symbols not above the letters (e.g. over the digits) are only supposed to be accessible with the YellowArrow and not by Shift, it would be much more important to have those sticky, and that could be done by letting these send Meta-Left and Meta-Right. As Meta is one of the key-types sticky with Alpha.

On the other hand if accessible by BOTH shift and sticky it will for qwertY only affect symbols on L and P not being accessible with sticky, BUT we are talking fourteen on the qwertZ : on Q, W, E, R ,  U, I, O, P, Ü ,  L, Ö, Ä ,  Y and M...

[Craig 1,435]

On the third hand, not only yellow arrow, and not both shift and yelow arrow.  only shift,   not sure why you would want yellow arrow to act like shift when we already have shift on both sides.

But I dunno qwertz.  Thats an afterthought, fix qwerty first.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Craig

[EskeRahn 5,471]

46 minutes ago, Craig said:

On the third hand, not only yellow arrow, and not both shift and yelow arrow.  only shift,   not sure why you would want yellow arrow to act like shift when we already have shift on both sides.

But I dunno qwertz.  Thats an afterthought, fix qwerty first.

Well the answer to the "why" is easy: Because the symbols are printed in yellow in top right corner and not white, to indicate that you should use the yellow arrow pointing top right. If you then ask why they are printed in yellow and not white in the first place, I can not offer a logic explanation. Maybe an aesthetic choice?

Personally I don't really care about easy access to anything on the current qwerty as it is partly shifted and thus messed up anyway *LOL*
Though a work-around for qwerty could map Alt+L and Alt+P as doublets, as Alt would be sticky. Or just to use FinQWERTY

[FlyingAntero 871]

11 hours ago, Craig said:

I've been spamming this all over the forum cuz I want everyone to want it too since I first learned about it.   If they reassign a key as meta (ideally the Fx-tec key), then we get global android app shortcuts (meta+letter, unrelated to the longpress letter in the stock launcher).  Then, you could use any launcher you want and still have shortcuts - and start them without having to go back to the launcher home screen

That would be a good thing but you can also make system wide shortcuts by using Keyboard/Button Mapper. It has a functionality to add specific shotcuts to key press combos.

[Craig 1,435]

8 hours ago, EskeRahn said:

Though a work-around for qwerty could map Alt+L and Alt+P as doublets, as Alt would be sticky. Or just to use FinQWERTY

Yeah I don't care about the colors, I expect shift to be level 2 like every other keyboard in the world, until now I hadn't even made the connection that the slant arrow and 2nd level characters were both yellow, I just assumed that's an fxtec color they chose to use for looks.

But yes, the lack of slash and question mark should be handled in the kcm, not kernel.  And if fxtec doesn't provide layouts that can get slash and question mark, then finqwerty is our solution.    I personally plan to map the right slant arrow to slash key once the two oem keys have separate key codes in kernel.

@FlyingAntero I'm familiar with keymapper - I started the thread here about it a couple months ago, and have talked with the author.   But OP may not be, so good to mention.

 

@EskeRahn I had another thought overnight too about your idea of assigning meta to slant arrows.  There is another plus side to that - there are individual keycodes for left_meta and right_meta, so it fits well.   It just leaves that Fxtec logo key with no real purpose then, other than android home.  Which I guess fxtec likes.  I personally don't think that's worth a key, but that maybe someone at fxtec really really wants a dedicated home button. 

 

[Craig 1,435]

5 hours ago, FlyingAntero said:

That would be a good thing but you can also make system wide shortcuts by using Keyboard/Button Mapper. It has a functionality to add specific shotcuts to key press combos.

Really?

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2557-key-mapper-foss-app-to-bind-keys-buttons-to-other-keys-or-actions

I starting using it to make SYM into slash while waiting for better solution couple months ago...

[EskeRahn 5,471]

1 hour ago, Craig said:

It just leaves that Fxtec logo key with no real purpose then, other than android home. 

Well if if the Yellow arrows becomes Meta then why not let the Logo become Fn? And map Fn+] respectively Fn+Y as home (for qwertY and qwertZ), the key just above the logo, so very easy to press with one finger... And PERHAPS (similar to press and release Alt with Gboard) let Press and release Fn do Home as it currently does, if this does not require some special coding. Giving both the existing and potential additional behaviour.... Fn+1..0 plus next two could give F1 to F12.

[Craig 1,435]

The built in AOSP launcher shortcuts only work with Meta keys.  That's why I originally suggesting make Fx key meta key, so you can use launcher shortcuts from there.    But if we make the slant arrow keys meta, then that's where the global shortcuts will come from, and Fx key is useless (other than its current use, android home) but that function can be meta+h so not needed to have a dedicated key - but that's my opinion.   I get the impression some people like this single press home key, and that's how Fxtec seems to want it.    This is using built in Android stuff so not major work for fxtec, plus treble compatible.   There is no standard keycode for Fn, so it cannot be assigned for a key unless they define it themself (like current slant-arrow implementation).

But yeah, I'd be quite happy with Fx+number row for F1-F12, even in the kernel, if they're keeping it as home key, cuz otherwise it's a pretty wasted key.   

If slant-arrow is assigned meta, tho, be aware you then wouldn't want to use those keys as 3rd level modifier key in layouts, cuz that would interfere with the global shortcuts.   So in that case, it's almost essential that the fxtec no longer be used for home.  Even with the change from full to alpha so we get accented letters on longpress and if they make SYM into right-alt so we get the symbol keyboard there, even if those are enough symbols that didnt require using us-intl layout, there is still the problem of the missing slash and question mark.  Which is the root cause of this whole conundrum, this would be a non-issue if they'd just included a slash key from the start.   But right-alt could be used when assigned to SYM for that.   And that's sticky too, so no worries there.

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Craig

[elvissteinjr 359]

9 minutes ago, Craig said:

There is no standard keycode for Fn

KEYCODE_FUNCTION?

[EskeRahn 5,471]

1 minute ago, elvissteinjr said:

KEYCODE_FUNCTION?

You beat me to it, yes. that is the one. Anyone can try installing e.g. KeyEvent

[Craig 1,435]

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2509-lineageos-160-test-builds/?do=findComment&comment=44147

I summarized my current thoughts there.

I dont understand the deal with keycode function.  There was some reason it wasnt good.  Maybe not compatible with treble?  or not 8-bit?  I cant remember the reason.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Craig

[EskeRahn 5,471]

2 minutes ago, Craig said:

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2509-lineageos-160-test-builds/?do=findComment&comment=44147

I summarized my current thoughts there.

I dont understand the deal with keycode function.  There was some reason it wasnt good.  Maybe not compatible with treble?  or not 8-bit?  I cant remember the reason.

Fn does not go sticky on Alpha.