I’m trying to create some key binds that use a 5th modifier key.
Either by separating the Hyper and Super key, and assigning Hyper to Caps Lock, to create my own key binds without modifying the base set of key binds, OR, by re-binding Caps Lock to something like Ctrl+Super+Alt+Shift, again to create my own key binds.
I see an option in the “Key Bindings” menu of System Settings to bind Caps Lock to Hyper, or to make Caps Lock choose a 5th level, but neither seem to do what I need them to do.
Caps Lock to Hyper seems just to act like a momentary press of the Meta key, and won’t let me bind it to any extra keys.
Caps Lock chooses 5th level also doesn’t seem to do anything when I enable it.
From what I understand, Qt, the framework that KDE uses, doesn’t support more than 4 modifier keys, so I think I’ll need to somehow bind Caps Lock to something like Ctrl+Super+Alt+Shift+, and then create all my key binds as if all 4 of those keys are being held down, but I can’t seem to find a way to do that either.
Open to suggestions on how to solve this, but ALSO, I’d like to learn the intricacies of this too, to understand exactly what “Caps Lock chooses 5th level” or “Makes Caps Lock an additional Hyper” is supposed to do, and how the latter is different from “Make Caps Lock an additional Super”
hi, welcome.
so you have wondered into the Advanced tab of the keyboard settings, have you?
the 3rd and 5th level keys give you access to additional characters on your keyboard layout (if they exist).
1st and 2nd are just regular keys and shifted keys and are usually printed on the keycaps
3rd and 4th are characters generated while holding the 3rd level key and in conjuction with the shift key, these characters are sometimes printed on the key caps, of international keyboards.
the 5th level grants you access to four more layers of possible characters
for instance, if you add the English US 3l layout to your settings you can generate all these characters from the letter L key on your US keyboard
nN’η6F∀Η
the last four require you to hold the 5th level key, shifted 5th level key, 3rd level + 5th level keys, and finally the vulcan neck pinch of 3rd level + 5th level + shift along with the L key
unfortunately these last 4 levels are not printed on the preview keyboard maps so you have to actually look into the layout file in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us and search for the definition of of the 3l layout to find out what they all do.
if you have a look as the other variants in that file you will notice that most of them only have 2 or 4 characters defined per key… 3l is one of the rare ones that use the 5th level.
you can also just assign the compose key to somewhere and generate a lot of these characters by typing a 2-4 letter sequence after pressing the compose key… and this may be more convenient than changing layouts and doing the vulcan neck pinch thing.
What about Caps as Hyper? It seems to act like a momentary Super/Meta key press instead of a Hyper key press.
I’m basically looking for a 5th modifier key to make my own keyboard shortcuts that don’t collide with any of the existing ones.
there are a lot of swap options in the Advanced tab.
caps lock chooses 5th level is one of them.