How to get special keys to work

Overview

key	standard function	tool	configurability	remarks
Fn	-	xmodmap, tpb	full	on release without completed key combination
Fn-F3	blank screen	ibm-acpi, thinkpad-acpi	full
Fn-F4	suspend to ram	ibm-acpi, thinkpad-acpi	full
Fn-F5	switch bluetooth	thinkpad-acpi	???	in models starting from 2002
Fn-F7	switch display	thinkpad-acpi, tpb	additional actions
Fn-F8	toggle display expansion	thinkpad-acpi, tpb	additional actions
Fn-F9	eject from dock	thinkpad-acpi	full
Fn-F12	hibernate	ibm-acpi, thinkpad-acpi	full
Fn-Pos1	brightness up	tpb	additional actions
Fn-End	brightness down	tpb	additional actions
Fn-PageUp	toggle thinklight	ibm-acpi, tpb	additional actions
Fn-Space	toggle zoom	tpb	full
Access IBM	help application	tpb	full
Home	open web browser	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Search	open search application	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Mail	open mail application	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Favorites	open favorites	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Reload	reload web page	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Abort	abort loading page	xmodmap, tpb	full	only iSeries and ext. keyboards
Backward	previous page	xmodmap, tpb	full	iSeries, ext. keyboards, Thinkpads starting from 2002
Forward	next page	xmodmap, tpb	full	iSeries, ext. keyboards, Thinkpads starting from 2002
Volume up	volume up	tpb	additional actions
Volume down	volume down	tpb	additional actions
Volume mute	mute volume	tpb	additional actions
Power	shutdown	ibm-acpi	full	triggered on pressing 3secs, but notebook goes off on 5sec press
Display lid	blank screen	ibm-acpi	full
Ultrabay lid	announce ultrabay change	ibm-acpi	full
Dock eject	eject from dock	ibm-acpi	full

ibm-acpi events

events triggered by ibm-acpi for /etc/acpi/events files

key	event
Fn-F3	ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001003
Fn-F4	ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001004
Fn-F12	ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 0000100c
Power	button/power PWRF 00000080 xxxxxxxx
Display lid	button/lid LID 00000080 xxxxxxxx
Ultrabay eject	ibm/bay MSTR 00000003 00000000
Ultrabay inserted	ibm/bay MSTR 00000001 00000000

tpb configuration

configuration keywords for tpbrc

key	config keyword
Access IBM	THINKPAD
Home	HOME
Search	SEARCH
Mail	MAIL
Favorites	FAVORITES
Reload	RELOAD
Abort	ABORT
Backward	BACKWARD
Forward	FORWARD
Fn	FN
Fn-Space	CALLBACK (zoom on/off)
Fn-PageUp	CALLBACK (thinklight on/off)
Fn-F7	CALLBACK (display lcd/crt/both)
Fn-F8	CALLBACK (expand on/off)
Fn-PageUp	CALLBACK (brightness <percent>)
Fn-PageDown	CALLBACK (brightness <percent>)
Volume up	CALLBACK (volume <percent>)
Volume down	CALLBACK (volume <percent>)
Vokume mute	CALLBACK (mute on/off)

To all parameter keywords should be assigned the full path to the executables supposed to be started on key press. The exectable provided for the CALLBACK keyword should take the parameters given in parentheses and act according to them. If you want to use xmodmap for the HOME, SEARCH, MAIL, FAVORITES, RELOAD, ABORT, BACKWARD, FORWARD and FN keys you should provide a XEVENTS=off in your tpbrc.

xmodmap configuration

xmodmap enables you to edit the modifier map and keymap tables that are used to translate keycodes into keysyms. Understood? Well, basically it allows you to give the X server a dictionary for the translation of keycodes like "97" into more human readable synonyms like "Home". This way xmodmap allows you to make the special keys of your keyboard known to X applications.

Usually you should write your keycode-keysym associations into the file ~/.Xmodmap. This file is usually read by the X session startup scripts of your system, so that the mappings automatically get included everytime you run the X server.

The ~/.Xmodmap lines for our purpose are in the form of

keycode <keycode> = <keysym>

The following table shows the keycodes generated by the Thinkpad special keys and sensible keysyms to assign them to.

keycodes generated by special keys

key	keycode	keysym
Backward	234	XF86Back
Forward	233	XF86Forward
Home	178	XF86HomePage
Search	229	XF86Search
Mail	236	XF86Mail
Favorites	230	XF86Favorites
Reload	231	XF86Reload
Abort	232	XF86Stop
Fn	227	F35

(Ofcourse you could also use Fxx keysyms as suggested by a lot of people, but if X offers special keysyms for internet keyboards, why not use them?)

Note: if you are running tpb you might need to add the line XEVENTS=off into your tpbrc to stop it from grabbing the key events and allow them to get through to X instead.

firefox configuration

(First of all thanks go to Ryan Barrett for writing the little howto on his blog.)
To have firefox make use of the browser keys you need to modify one of its files. To do this you will first need to extract it from the browser.jar archive. Do...

$ cd <firefox-directory>/chrome
$ unzip browser.jar

The file of interest is content/browser/browser.xul. Edit it...

$ vi content/browser/browser.xul

Look for the <keyset id="mainKeyset"> section and in there for the lines...

<key id="goBackKb"  keycode="VK_LEFT" command="Browser:Back" modifiers="alt"/>
<key id="goForwardKb"  keycode="VK_RIGHT" command="Browser:Forward" modifiers="alt"/>

Add the following two lines immidiately after them

<key id="goBackTPKb"  keycode="VK_XF86Back" command="Browser:Back"/>
<key id="goForwardTPKb"  keycode="VK_XF86Forward" command="Browser:Forward"/>

No save the file and repackage the browser.jar archive...

$ zip -rD0 browser.jar content/browser/

That's it.

pekwm configuration

This is just a small example of what else you can do with your extra keys.
I configured the two browser keys of my T41p to switch workspaces in pekwm, by adding the following two lines to the .pekwm/keys file:

KeyPress = "Mod1 XF86Back" { Actions = "GoToWorkspace prev" }
KeyPress = "Mod1 XF86Forward" { Actions = "GoToWorkspace next" }

(As you can see the XF86..... keysyms are just as universally usable as any others.)