Posts: 216
malanrich
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
#1
Anyone know how to disable or reduce the keyboard repeat rate? Mine's toooooooooo sensitive.
Urban
Posts: 58
Urban
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
#2
edit ~/.fluxbox/startup

In there is a setting for keyboard repeat-rate uncomment and fool around with the numbers.
xset r rate 195 35

EDIT: More info a few posts down.
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/keyboard-repeat-rate-t507.html#2671"
linktext was:"antix.freeforu ms.org/keyboard-re ... .html#2671"
====================================

END EDIT

I am relatively new to fluxbox and I have never had experience with adjusting these so maybe play around with those numbers until something good happens. I assume less is slower.

On a related note I changed my keyboard driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
to kbd instead of keyboard because apparently Keyboard is going to be removed from later kernel versions. Plus the warnings in xsession-errors were annoying.
Last edited by Urban on 06 Mar 2008, 22:36, edited 1 time in total.
Posts: 216
malanrich
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
#3
Ha Ha. Thanks for the tip. I knew it must be simple like that, but when I first looked in startup, everything seemed commented out. So I carelessly overlooked that setting.

I wonder if there's a way to disable it entirely...maybe zeroing out the numbers or setting it to xset r rate off. Hmmmm.

Also I'm thinking that every WM would have its own setting for this. If I set to boot into icewm, the fluxbox settings would be null, right?
Posts: 58
Urban
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
#4
The keyboard repeat rate is a window manager specific setting as far as I know.
Posts: 47
n2j3
Joined: 19 Nov 2007
#5
xset's pretty useful

try xset -b to disable pcspeaker beeps
and xset m 1/2 to reduce (halve?) your mouse speed (i found my optical mouse too fast by default)
Posts: 58
Urban
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
#6
xset -r OR xset r off will disable autorepeat

xset r rate <delay in milliseconds before auto repeat starts> <repeat rate per second>

xset r rate 1000 1
would be repeat every second once per second
Posts: 216
malanrich
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
#7
Thanks for the details about xset, guys.

It's not a trivial adjustment. One post described the horror of a guy who couldn't log in anymore because his password kept repeating.
Posts: 58
Urban
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
#8
You can just type the xset command into a terminal and test it on the fly.
Posts: 216
malanrich
Joined: 12 Sep 2007
#9
Hi urban,

When you say"You can just type the xset command into a terminal and test it on the fly," it makes me wonder about what has to be"restarted" in fluxbox in order for new settings to take effect. I've been restarting and also rebooting.

A couple of things I've discovered:

1) Altering the repeat rate seems *not* to be wm specific. My new settings carry over into both Icewm and Window Maker.

2) (very important for future searchers on this topic) *Beware* of disabling autorepeat entirely. This will disable *all* keyboard scrolling (i.e., scrollbars on all windows, scrolling of cursor direction keys, even scrolling multiple line-breaks with the"enter" key in a text document).
Posts: 58
Urban
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
#10
xset is actually a command to set your preferences for X. So technically it is set for all WMs, but putting it in the config file for fluxbox should only execute it when fluxbox starts. That is what I mean when I say window manager specific.

My understanding of xset is that the settings are reset to default values when you restart X. So unless they are put into a file that is run every start up they will not be remembered.