Remapping the N900 arrow keys
Here’s a tip for those of you using an N900 with an English keyboard.
For those who don’t know it, this is how arrow keys are arranged in (some) non-English layouts:
 |
Compare to the English layout:
 |
My N900 has an English keyboard, and I like it because I use the X terminal a lot so having separate keys for the arrows is good.
However I miss the accents (in particular ‘ and ~) as I usually write in Portuguese and Spanish, and using the additional on-screen keyboard is not that convenient for a Jabber conversation.
Fortunately, arrow keys can be re-mapped to add extra symbols by editing this file:
/usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51
Just go to the end of the file and replace the ‘arrows_4btns‘ entry with this:
xkb_symbols "arrows_4btns" {
key <UP> { type[Group1] = "PC_FN_LEVEL2", symbols[Group1] = [ Up, dead_circumflex ] };
key <LEFT> { type[Group1] = "PC_FN_LEVEL2", symbols[Group1] = [ Left, dead_acute ] };
key <DOWN> { type[Group1] = "PC_FN_LEVEL2", symbols[Group1] = [ Down, dead_tilde ] };
key <RGHT> { type[Group1] = "PC_FN_LEVEL2", symbols[Group1] = [ Right, dead_grave ] };
};
With this, Fn+Up/Down/Left/Right will produce a dead circumflex/tilde/acute accent/grave accent.
If you want these changes to take effect immediately just type ‘setxkbmap us‘.
Hope you find it useful.
Update 19 Dec 2009. Since some people have asked: of course even if you only write in English or another language that doesn’t need accents, you can still add useful symbols to the arrow keys such as ‘|‘, ‘<‘ or ‘>‘. You can use any of these keyboard layouts as an example. See also this thread and this other one.
Update 10 Jan 2010. The information on this post is now (in expanded form) in the Maemo wiki.
Posted: December 17th, 2009 under English, Planet Igalia, Planet Maemo, Software.
Comments: 19
Comments
Comment from Conny
Time: December 17, 2009, 10:53 pm
Very nice tip :)
Here are some for German Umlauts:
xkb_symbols “arrows_4btns” {
// standard arrows mapping
// normal 2nd level must not be enumerated to allow text selection with Shift key
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Up, udiaeresis ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Left, odiaeresis ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Down, adiaeresis ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Right, ssharp ] };
};
Comment from Webbie
Time: December 18, 2009, 4:04 am
I would like to recommend the following, which maps Home/End/Page Up/Page Down to their logical movement counterparts:
partial hidden alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols “arrows_4btns” {
// standard arrows mapping
// normal 2nd level must not be enumerated to allow text selection with Shift key
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Up, Page_Up ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Left, Home ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Down, Page_Down ] };
key { type[Group1] = “PC_FN_LEVEL2″, symbols[Group1] = [ Right, End ] };
};
Comment from Ernesto
Time: December 18, 2009, 7:47 am
Thank you for the tip! àáèéìíòóùú and so on…
Comment from crown77
Time: December 18, 2009, 9:36 am
wow this tip is what i waited for many thx crown77
Comment from crown77
Time: December 18, 2009, 9:57 am
Hi again sorry i was a little too far, could somebody give a hint how to activate the arrow keys in the german n900 device version so the up and down working without fn like in the usa and uk version? i would need this to play with the emus.
thx again crown77
Comment from Ismael
Time: December 18, 2009, 10:34 am
In the spanish version of n900 you can change the layout ot the keyboard to english in settings, text input, desing of phisical keyboard
Pingback from Tweets that mention The world won’t listen » Remapping the N900 arrow keys — Topsy.com
Time: December 18, 2009, 2:44 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by desk_stage, Knut. Knut said: Maemo.org: Remapping the N900 arrow keys http://url4.eu/x2Nh [...]
Comment from speednut
Time: December 18, 2009, 9:28 pm
Does anybody know the key name to find the next or previous white space? I’d like to map ctrl + (left | right) to be the next word or previous work, like keys “W” and “B” do while in vi command mode.
Comment from berto
Time: December 18, 2009, 10:06 pm
speednut: Ctrl+Left/Right works that way by default :)
Pingback from Pinguins Móveis » Blog Archive » Pinguins soltos
Time: December 19, 2009, 12:34 am
[...] E uma dica para quem tem, ou quer, um N900: como acentuar com o N900 com layout inglês. [...]
Comment from speednut
Time: December 20, 2009, 1:35 am
@berto: On my US spec N900 with a doc loaded in Notes, the Ctrl+Left/Right does the same thing as Left/Right. Using the Ctrl key makes no difference.
Can you share the default setting on yours?
Pingback from mikko’s log » Blog Archive » N900 Scandinavic Letters from US keyboard
Time: December 20, 2009, 1:46 pm
[...] http://blogs.igalia.com/berto/2009/12/17/remapping-the-n900-arrow-keys/ [...]
Comment from berto
Time: December 21, 2009, 12:50 am
speednut: I’ve just tried again right after reflashing with the notes app. It works fine, you can jump between words with Ctrl+Left/Right
Comment from speednut
Time: January 3, 2010, 8:34 am
@berto: I pulled my head out of my bumm and it works as you’ve stated. Thanks for being patient with me. :-)
Pingback from smoku: Jak przemapować klawisze w #N900 – blogs.igalia.com/ otagowany n900 | flaker.pl
Time: January 8, 2010, 4:55 pm
[...] reklama smoku przed chwilą Jak przemapować klawisze w #N900 – blogs.igalia.com/…/12/17/remapping-the-n900… [...]
Pingback from Using the Shavian alphabet on the N900 « ᛏᚦ
Time: January 9, 2010, 9:43 pm
[...] about ten minutes’ work, and as so often I’m rather impressed at how flexible Maemo is. This post was enormously [...]
Pingback from Using the Shavian alphabet on the N900 | Maemo Nokia N900
Time: January 10, 2010, 1:48 am
[...] about ten minutes’ work, and as so often I’m rather impressed at how flexible Maemo is. This post was enormously [...]
Comment from Johannes
Time: January 10, 2010, 2:33 am
Thanks for the tip, this makes the N900 a lot more usable to me. Now there’s also a kind of firefox which runs on the N900, so I don’t think I need my iPhone anymore :)
Pingback from Mapeando acentos e cedilha no Nokia N900 com teclado US | rodrigostoledo.com
Time: February 6, 2010, 12:35 pm
[...] é via xkb, alterando o mapeamento do teclado. O melhor link que achei sobre o assunto foi o blog The world won’t listen. No fundo, é preciso alterar o arquivo /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/nokia_vndr/rx-51, indicando as [...]
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