Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Frédéric L. W. Meunier]

Something strange happened minutes ago. I was typing and
suddenly all subsequent keys pressed showed as capitals, like
if something reversed the "Caps Lock" key. With it enabled all
showed as lower case.

Then I tested in an open rxvt from where I started the session
and everything showed right. The problem was only on Xfree86,
and I had to restart it.

I'm using all current packages and latest server. Any idea of
what might have caused it or what I can do to track it down if
it reappears ? Nothing in the logs.

-- 
How to contact me - http://www.pervalidus.net/contact.html

Re: Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Takuma Murakami]

On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 02:13:24 -0300 (E. South America Standard Time)
Frédéric L. W. Meunier <0@pervalidus.tk> wrote:

> Something strange happened minutes ago. I was typing and
> suddenly all subsequent keys pressed showed as capitals, like
> if something reversed the "Caps Lock" key. With it enabled all
> showed as lower case.
> 
> Then I tested in an open rxvt from where I started the session
> and everything showed right. The problem was only on Xfree86,
> and I had to restart it.

It may be the mismatch between the Caps Lock state of
XFree and that of Windows.  If it is the source of your
problem, you could re-synch two Caps Lock states by
pressing Caps Lock for a while (several tries should
be needed until it get fixed).

The Caps Lock state of XFree86 is not strictly
synchronized with the state of Windows.  The former
dominates the behaviour of all X applications while the
latter dominates Windows applications, non-X rxvt and
the LED on keyboards.

As an experiment, when we press Caps Lock key for a
while, Windows takes just one toggle.  However, XFree
receives a number of WM_KEYDOWN messages (due to
Windows' autorepeat?) and it toggles the state
repeatedly.  Thus two states can be different.

Takuma Murakami (murakami@ipl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

Re: Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Harold L Hunt II]

Frédéric and Takuma,

Check out the Test104/4.3.0-17 release.  I disabled processing of the 
Win32 repeat count for VK_CAPITAL messages.  This may or may not help. 
In fact, I suspect that it won't help.  However, it will at least give 
me some incentive to fix it the right way when I find out that it isn't 
correct.  Please try it and report back.

Harold

Takuma Murakami wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 02:13:24 -0300 (E. South America Standard Time)
> Frédéric L. W. Meunier <0@pervalidus.tk> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Something strange happened minutes ago. I was typing and
>>suddenly all subsequent keys pressed showed as capitals, like
>>if something reversed the "Caps Lock" key. With it enabled all
>>showed as lower case.
>>
>>Then I tested in an open rxvt from where I started the session
>>and everything showed right. The problem was only on Xfree86,
>>and I had to restart it.
> 
> 
> It may be the mismatch between the Caps Lock state of
> XFree and that of Windows.  If it is the source of your
> problem, you could re-synch two Caps Lock states by
> pressing Caps Lock for a while (several tries should
> be needed until it get fixed).
> 
> The Caps Lock state of XFree86 is not strictly
> synchronized with the state of Windows.  The former
> dominates the behaviour of all X applications while the
> latter dominates Windows applications, non-X rxvt and
> the LED on keyboards.
> 
> As an experiment, when we press Caps Lock key for a
> while, Windows takes just one toggle.  However, XFree
> receives a number of WM_KEYDOWN messages (due to
> Windows' autorepeat?) and it toggles the state
> repeatedly.  Thus two states can be different.
> 
> Takuma Murakami (murakami@ipl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)
> 

Re: Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Takuma Murakami]

> Check out the Test104/4.3.0-17 release.  I disabled processing of the 
> Win32 repeat count for VK_CAPITAL messages.  This may or may not help. 
> In fact, I suspect that it won't help.  However, it will at least give 
> me some incentive to fix it the right way when I find out that it isn't 
> correct.  Please try it and report back.

It does not help.  The main problem is not the repeat
count in WM_KEYDOWN messages but the number of WM_KEYDOWN
messages.  Following your idea, installing the piece of code
if (wParam == VK_CAPITAL && lParam & (1<<30))
  return 0
in the WM_KEYDOWN handler will help.  Of course the
repeat counter reset should make more robust solution.

Because the VK-based code does not work in Japanese
environments, I have tested with an equivalent
ScanCode-based code.

Takuma Murakami (murakami@ipl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

Re: Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Kensuke Matsuzaki]

Takuma and European who have AltGr problem,

Open "Regional and Language Option" in Control Panel.
Add English as input language.
After XFree86/Cygwin start, change language to English using
Shift+Alt key.

Doesn't this help you?

It seems that we no longer receive fale CtrlL if I set default
Input Language German.

If this works on non-Japenese Windows, following code do this
automatically.
LoadKeyboardLayout ("00000409", KLF_ACTIVATE);

Kensuke Matsuzaki

Re: Weird keyboard behavior with "Caps Lock" key

[Takuma Murakami]

> Open "Regional and Language Option" in Control Panel.
> Add English as input language.
> After XFree86/Cygwin start, change language to English using
> Shift+Alt key.
> 
> Doesn't this help you?

It surely works on my machine, both by Control Panel
and by the function LoadKeyboardLayout.  Thank you for
the excellent solution.

Takuma Murakami (murakami@ipl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)