Have you a Hyper for Great Good

Hyper.md

Have you Hyper for Great Good

So. You have become an Emacs wizard. And you find yourself aching for the simplicity that another modifier key would introduce into your life. Ah, the things you could do with Hyper.

Or maybe, you just want Hyper for another reason.

... Except everywhere you look, everyone's talking about .xmodmaps and xkbcomp, but you're using one of those fancy desktop managers. (Aka, not awesome, dwm, xmonad or something even more hipster) And because of that, you're lost in the sea of confusion that is trying to customize your keyboard mapping.

Gnome, Cinnamon, and KDE all use xkb.

You need gnome-tweak-tool to access all of the xkb options on Gnome.

On Cinnamon they're under Settings > Keboard > Keyboard layouts > Options.

KDE has them under Settings > Keyboard > Advanced.

That's great and all, but the only real option available is to make both of your Windows (or whatever logo is on them) keys Hyper. And you want to make it so that only the key of your choice on the right (those ones you never touch) is your new fancy Hyper.

Usually, this requires wading through a bunch of config files and reading through terrible documentation of the xkb system and strange xev outputs.

But instead of that, all you're going to need for this are root access, a handy text editor, and your mouse. Sounds simple? Because it actually is.

Alright. Let's do this.

I'm working on Arch Linux, so all of my xkb files are under /usr/share/X11/xkb. You may need to consult your distro's documentation, but it'll probably be somewhere around there.

Now, open your text editor with sudo or some other way of granting root access. So sudo + emacs or vim or subl3 or atom or nano or zile or dex or vi or... well, you get the idea.

The first file we're going to be working with is an addition, under symbols in that xkb folder. It should already have a bunch of stuff like us and dvp and stuff. We're going to be adding a file called hyper. So on my computer, this is /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/hyper.

The contents of hyper will be this:

partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "ralt" {
    key <RALT> { [ Hyper_R ] };
    modifier_map Mod3 { <HYPR>, Hyper_R };
};

partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "rwin" {
    key <RWIN> { [ Hyper_R ] };
    modifier_map Mod3 { <HYPR>, Hyper_R };
};

partial modifier_keys
xkb_symbols "rctl" {
    key <RCTL> { [ Hyper_R ] };
    modifier_map Mod3 { <HYPR>, Hyper_R };
};

Now, all the other files we're working with will be up a level in rules. So, again, for me, that's /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/.

The first file to change is evdev. In evdev, all the way at the bottom, right below the line with lv5:rwin_switch_lock_cancel and above the section that starts with ! option = compat we're going to add three things to match the symbols we just introduced.

hyper:ralt = +hyper(ralt)
hyper:rwin = +hyper(rwin)
hyper:rctl = +hyper(rctl)

Good? So you should get something like this for the general area:

  lv5:lsgt_switch_lock_cancel     =       +level5(lsgt_switch_lock_cancel)
  lv5:ralt_switch_lock_cancel     =       +level5(ralt_switch_lock_cancel)
  lv5:lwin_switch_lock_cancel     =       +level5(lwin_switch_lock_cancel)
  lv5:rwin_switch_lock_cancel     =       +level5(rwin_switch_lock_cancel)
  hyper:ralt = +hyper(ralt)
  hyper:rwin = +hyper(rwin)
  hyper:rctl = +hyper(rctl)



! option        =       compat
  grp_led:num           =       +lednum(group_lock)
  grp_led:caps          =       +ledcaps(group_lock)
  grp_led:scroll        =       +ledscroll(group_lock)
  japan:kana_lock       =       +japan(kana_lock)

Great.

Now, we need to add descriptions to these things.

So open up the file evdev.lst, and aaaaalll the way at the bottom (just below the terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp, add some wording like this:

  hyper                Position of the Hyper key
  hyper:ralt           Right Alt as Hyper
  hyper:rwin           Right Windows key as Hyper
  hyper:rctl           Right Ctrl as Hyper

Be careful about those leading spaces!

So now, we have our actions, our keyword-to-internal mapping, and a description. But we still need some more things so that our fancy guis will work. So the next file to edit is evdev.xml.

Again, all the way at the bottom, between the last </optionList> and </xkbConfigRegistry> we're going to insert a new optionList node.

  <optionList>
    <group allowMultipleSelection="true">
      <configItem>
        <name>Hyper</name>
        <description>Position of the Hyper key</description>
      </configItem>
      <option>
        <configItem>
          <name>hyper:ralt</name>
          <description>Right Alt as Hyper</description>
        </configItem>
      </option>
      <option>
        <configItem>
          <name>hyper:rwin</name>
          <description>Right Windows key as Hyper</description>
        </configItem>
      </option>
      <option>
        <configItem>
          <name>hyper:rctl</name>
          <description>Right Ctrl as Hyper</description>
        </configItem>
      </option>
    </group>
  </optionList>

And that's it!

You should now be able to open up your keyboard settings of choice and enable your hyper key to be any (or all) of those options under "Position of the Hyper Key".

Happy hacking!