numlock

[J S]

>>Harold,
>>
>>This is simply a bug report. The FACT is that if you start XFree with the 
>>numlock key on, the keyboard doesn't work properly. There have been plenty 
>>of other posts about this in the past so I'm not the first to report this. 
>>Even if you don't care about it, and it doesn't affect you, I think you'll 
>>find a lot of users (who don't necessarily post here) have come across the 
>>numlock issue. I know my users have, and everyone agrees this is a BUG.
>
>I don't agree that it is a bug.  I believe that this is simply the side 
>effect of changes made to how numlock is handled in the X Window System; 
>those changes were beyond our control and not all libraries and 
>applications have been updated in the 5 or more years since those changes 
>to handle numlock properly.  Thus, anything that we do to turn numlock off 
>will only be a partial work-around, not a bug fix.  If it was a bug fix 
>then it would apply all the time, but it can't be applied all the time 
>because the majority of users that don't use LessTif or Motif applications 
>will wonder why their numlock key keeps turning off.
>
>>No one has asked you to do the work for this though - If I can, I'll 
>>provide the patch using Thomas' code, but as the one in charge of this 
>>project, you're the man who says whether such a patch goes into the build. 
>>I was just trying to get some involvement from you, maybe encouragement.
>
>Yeah you did ask me to do the work, you sent me a private message asking if 
>I was interested.
>
>I'm not saying it wouldn't go in.  I think it is farely obvious that it 
>something doesn't change the default behavior then it goes in almost 
>automatically.  I say go for it.
>
>Now, you might still be wondering why I'm not interested.  I'm not 
>interested in writing it myself because I spent about five minutes thinking 
>about it and came up with various questions about how this should behave 
>when Cygwin/X loses or regains keyboard focus.  I also don't particularly 
>like changing the keyboard state.  Then I started thinking that maybe a 
>better way to do this would be to make a command-line parameter that causes 
>numlock to not be specified as a mask key.  I also figured that an even 
>better way may be an option on the tray menu that lets you toggle a 
>numlock-override during your session that just makes numlock look like it 
>is off without actually changing the keyboard state.
>
>See what I mean about how I don't think this has been completely thought 
>out?  Somebody needs to make this one their own and it sounds like you are 
>interested, so go for it.
>
>>I personally liked the idea of adding a flag to the XWin command line e.g.
>>
>>Xwin -numlockoff
>>
>>but if you're saying this is a non-starter I won't bother.
>
>I never said it was a non-starter.  I just said "I'm not the man for the 
>job" because it sounded like you were asking me to write the code for you.
>

Absolutely not. If it sounded like I was asking you to do the work - that's 
my fault, I should have worded my email better, I only wanted your 
advice/approval.
That said, you did seem to be ignoring the numlock issue. Usually you are 
very quick to reply and helpful, aren't you?! :)
Believe it or not, I get a lot of grief about the numlock key and I tried 
telling my users what you said before about it not being a bug, but now 
everyone thinks I'm in denial! They call me "numnuts" at work now!
Anyway, you obviously have a better understanding of the problem but I don't 
think you can expect a bugfix to anticipate future changes. I doubt whether 
today's XFree will work on all future releases of Windows.

I'll crack on with trying to write a patch and hopefully I'll be able to 
contribute some code (with a bit of support and guidance along the way?).

Cheers,

JS.

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