Ubuntu – remap the top number keys to use the symbols and numbers with the shift key

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As a developer I often have to write a lot of % $ # symbols in my code. It is extra work over a day to keep hitting shift so obviously this will be a real functional improvement for programming to remap the top row of number keys to the symbols by default and the number via plus shift. I have a numeric keypad that I use for numbers. I do see a few posts on how to re-map the shift keys but that is not what I want to do. I also have tried to use xev but I'm not sure if it understands what shift+1 is like is it just telling me what the shift key is? Anyway it would be really sweet if there is a simple gui to do this but if not I can rewrite a preference file. Thanks!

Best Answer

There is a gui tool to remap keys. It is called dconf-tools (install via apt). Under org -> gnome -> desktop -> input-sources there are xkb-options. I used this to switch escape and capslock.

EDIT: go to /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols . There you'll find abbreviations for different languages. Open your language with sudo nano ... In the file you'll see lines like: '1, exclam, ...' just put the command for the symbol first and the number second and it will be switched around.

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