RedBearAK
commented
1 month ago @Alberto-vgdd
I didn't know about the GNOME shortcut. I notice that works for me (on the virtualized Cmd+Semicolon position), but only in a GTK app window like GNOME Text Editor. It's not working here in a Firefox window text area, or in VSCode (Electron/Chromium). I had been using a plugin for Ulauncher that lets me look for emojis by typing "em emojiname".
The problem with the Fn key is that on most PC keyboards/laptops it is a key that is directly handled by the BIOS of the machine, to activate special hardware/media function keys, or flip the functions of the function keys row (often depends on a BIOS setting with PC keyboards). If you run evtest on such a machine (disable Toshy to look at the output from the real keyboard device, or look at the output from the xwaykeyz virtual keyboard), the Linux input system literally can't see you pressing the Fn key. But it will see the modified key code that will come from the key that you pair with the Fn key as a combo.
On the other hand, if you happen to be on a Mac portable or using an external Apple keyboard, the keymapper can see the Fn key event. This is already used in a shortcut that can disable/enable the "Forced Numpad" feature with Fn+NumLock, exactly the same as using Fn+Clear on an Apple keyboard with Numpad. So it is possible to remap the Fn key, but it will generally only work on an actual Apple keyboard. Possibly some PC keyboards that use the hid_apple driver to support extra media/hardware functions like an Apple keyboard.
I can imagine a popup like that is not standardized across DEs, and that is probably the reason why this feature hasn't been planned. But still, I would like to hear if this was considered at some point.
True, it doesn't even seem to be standardized across apps on a GNOME desktop. But, since there is an existing keyboard shortcut, at least in GNOME, that will open an emoji dialog at least some of the time, this could be part of the keymaps that are specific to certain desktop environments. If it exists on GNOME it may also have a counterpart on some other DEs. I'll have to look into that.
For me, I might even be able to redirect the remap to activate Ulauncher and type "em ", but since I'm on a PC laptop I won't have access to the Fn key, so I don't know what shortcut I could use to make it any more convenient than doing Cmd+Space and typing "em " myself.
I can show you how to do a custom user remap of Fn to Ctrl+Semicolon, but if you're not using an Apple keyboard you'd have to pick some other shortcut for the input side of the remap, and you can't just choose to tap a modifier key (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, or Meta/Super/Win/Cmd) as a shortcut by itself, I don't think the keymapper likes that. It wants to see either regular non-modifier keys or "combos" as inputs. So if you aren't on an Apple keyboard the exercise would be sort of pointless. You'd just be replacing a convenient combo with some other non-standardized combo shortcut.
In short, the practicality of trying to have a shortcut for this to match real Macs is quite limited. And then there's the fact that Fn is conveniently on the bottom left corner of Apple keyboards, but the Ctrl key is in that position on most PC keyboards, with Fn to the right of it. So the muscle memory factor is also limited.
Here's how you would do the custom remap if you happen to be on an Apple keyboard. Find the user_apps editable "slice" in your config file, and add a keymap like this (the "User overrides: GNOME" keymap):
###################################################################################################
### SLICE_MARK_START: user_apps ### EDITS OUTSIDE THESE MARKS WILL BE LOST ON UPGRADE
keymap("User hardware keys", {
}, when = matchProps(not_lst=remotes_lod))
keymap("User overrides: GNOME", {
C("Fn"): C("C-Semicolon"), # Custom remap for Fn to open emoji picker in GNOME
}, when = lambda ctx:
matchProps(not_lst=remotes_lod)(ctx) and
DESKTOP_ENV == 'gnome'
)
### SLICE_MARK_END: user_apps ### EDITS OUTSIDE THESE MARKS WILL BE LOST ON UPGRADE
###################################################################################################
You can open the Toshy config folder from the tray icon menu, it's in the normally hidden folder ~/.config/toshy/. The file is toshy_config.py. Save the changes are restart Toshy services from the tray icon menu, or in the terminal with toshy-services-restart. The new remap should become active.
Alberto-vgdd
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. This feature request doesn't really correspond to a problem.
Describe the solution you'd like In MacOS, the "fn" key (bottom-left most key) is by default mapped to bring up a an emoji-selector pop up. It would be amazing if toshy could achieve something similar out of the box. It would also be cool, if the feature could be toggled on/off from the Preferences UI like some of the other settings.
Describe alternatives you've considered If something like that is unreasonable to include for the scope of this project, it would be nice if at least Toshy would map the key to the equivalent of the DE/distro that was running. In the case of GNOME, the shortcut is
Ctrl + ;and brings up the image below.Additional context I can imagine a popup like that is not standardized across DEs, and that is probably the reason why this feature hasn't been planned. But still, I would like to hear if this was considered at some point.