On Thursday 14 September 2006 12:21 am, M Harris wrote:
On Tuesday 12 September 2006 23:57, Paul Abrahams wrote:
This is a full-size keyboard, and holding down Fn while pressing other keys doesn't seem to change the keycode.
Look in xev again. The Fn key may not have a keycode of its own, but it may affect the "symbol" of another keycode. You will notice that ctl, shift, and alt, do not change the keycodes of the keys they affect... but they do affect the keysym--- the symbol for the key in X. Just a thought.
I tried using Fn as a shift key for many keys, including the 1 key, the PgUp key, and the various shift keys. I did not see any difference in the xev report with Fn held down and with Fn not held down.
I agree with the previous post... usually the Fn key is a hardware thing in the keyboard... and yes, your bath may have disturbed just one key. You may want to take it apart and thoroughly dry it out, wipe it down, and reassemble it.
It could be but it seems unlikely that just that one mysterious key would malfunction. If a key is going to malfunction, why would it be just that one?
Is this keyboard usb, ps2, AT?
PS2
Is the Fn button a different color ... the Fn button on my laptop is blue, and the hardware keys that it affects are also blue or have secondary caps that are blue.
No, it's the same color as all the other ones.
On a black screen console does the key show up in 'showkey'? Hit the key a few times on a black screen terminal (not X, and have X down) and then press ctrl-alt-F10 and look at the messages... see if the key shows up there as 'not known' by the kernel.
It doesn't.
Kind regards,
M Harris <>< harrismh777@earthlink.net
Thanks for looking at the mystery even if you couldn't solve it. I suppose that there are worse things in life than a do-nothing key on one's keyboard. I can claim no better reason for asking about it than curiosity. A google search on "Dynapoint keyboard fn key" yields nothing useful. Paul