Arch Linux

thayer

Fellow

From: Vancouver, BC

Registered: 2007-05-20

Posts: 1,560

Website

Why do some X keycodes count up like a timer when pressed in xev?

I have noticed that when I assign kernel scancodes to certain (available) kernel keycodes and then test them with xev, the keys are recognized but there is a 'time' value that keeps counting up until I press the Escape key.  It's almost as if xev recognizes the key being pressed, but then thinks I'm continuing to hold the key.  Once I press Escape, the 'time' stops counting.  Furthermore, once I've pressed one of these "timer" keys, the other hotkeys won't report their X keycodes to xev until I restart X.

At first I thought this was hardware-related--specific to each button--but then I found that if I change the kernel keycode to something else, it works as expected.

This has been incredibly frustrating because so far I've only found 2 (available) kernel keycodes that don't act as a timer when I press them, and I need 4 or 5 keys in total.

Can anyone shed some light on this ever-so-obscure topic?  I would like to know why certain keycodes act as timers and why other don't, and whether there is a way I can easily find a correct keycode without rebooting my notebook each and every time I need to test one.

Thanks!

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thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca