ergonomic typing enforcement

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Saturday 01 January 2011 21:12:35 David L wrote:
> I just bought an ergonomic keyboard because my wrists are starting to hurt.
> Now that I have one, I am trying to get rid of some bad habits that
> I've developed
> over many years.  One such bad habit (according to some ergonomic typing
> web sites I've seen) is using the same hand to key a modifier and a letter
> (eg: left-control and f to move forward in emacs and shells).  Is there a
> way to make such key combinations simply not work in fedora?  For example,
> can I make it so left control plus [asdfzxcvbqwert] does nothing?

Last time I checked X was mapping both left and right keypresses of the 
modifier keys to the same action, rendering it pretty impossible to trace which 
of the two keys was actually pressed. While the kernel does make a distinction 
between *all* keys, X hides this information from userspace programs (except 
from the ones which work inside a console).

So no, you cannot do that. The way X behaves, either both modifier keys will 
work, or neither. It is beyond me why X devs would limit the functionality of 
X in this way, but I guess not many people ask for advanced keyboard 
customization like you (and me, back when I needed such things)...

Btw, why is it considered bad practice to type both the letter and the modifier 
with the same hand? I do it on a regular basis (my little fingers being very 
near the shift modifiers most of the time...), and am not aware of any 
functional problems with that. Sometimes it can even be useful, if you ever 
need to adapt to handling the keyboard with only one hand (the second hand 
holding a beer or a baby or such... :-) ...).

Best, :-)
Marko