[xubuntu-users] How to change keys e.g. [ ]

[James Freer]

On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 12:44 PM, Wybo Dekker <wybo at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 2012-07-28 23:14, James Freer wrote:
>> [UK keyboard]
>>
>> I'd be grateful if someone could advise how i can swop the [ ]
>> brackets for ( ). I virtually never use the square brackets and find
>> always doing SHIFT + ( or ) a pain. Ok a minor thing but i just find
>> it irritating as i seem to use ( ) quite a lot in writing. I don't
>> know where to look - i can change some of the other keys like the CTRL
>> for CAPSLOCK (popular i gather for emacs users) through
>> Panel->Keyboard Layouts.
>
> Use Keyboards Layouts once to set what you like. Then remove it - it's
> buggy. Then:
>
> xmodmap -pke > ~/.Xmodmap
> then edit .Xmodmap, replacing:
> 1. all paren with XXX
> 2. all bracket with paren
> 3. all XXX with bracket
> finally run :
> xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap # takes 15 seconds
>
>> I was wondering if one could put an alias in the bashrc which would be
>> useful as i keep a backup for new releases as i have quite a few
>> aliases already.
>
> not needed as long as you keep the .Xmodmap in your home directory
>
> --
> Wybo

many thanks... i'm just trying to read through the man xmodmap file -
and understand what you've written!

james