Historically, MouseKeys supported GUI programs when many terminals had no dedicated pointing device. As pointing devices became ubiquitous, the use of mouse keys narrowed to situations where a pointing device was missing, unusable, or inconvenient. Such situations may arise from the following:
environmental limits (e.g., vibration in car or plane)
broken/missing/unavailable equipment
In 1987, Macintosh Operating System 4.2 Easy Access provided MouseKeys support to all applications. Easy access was (de)activated by clicking the ⇧ Shift key five times.[citation needed]
By the early 2020s, with graphics tablets becoming more common, a configuration change may be required before enabling MouseKeys.[citation needed]
MouseKeysAccel
X window system MouseKeysAccel trajectory
parameter
meaning
mk_delay
milliseconds between the initial key press and first repeated motion event
mk_interval
milliseconds between repeated motion events
mk_max_speed
steady speed (in action_delta units) applied each event
mk_time_to_max
number of events (count) accelerating to steady speed
mk_curve
ramp used to reach maximum pointer speed
The X Window System MouseKeysAccel control applies action (usually cursor movement) repeatedly while a direction key {1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9} remains depressed.[3] When the key is depressed, an action_delta is immediately applied. If the key remains depressed, longer than mk_delay milliseconds, some action is applied every mk_interval milliseconds until the key is released. If the key remains depressed, after more than mk_time_to_max actions have been applied, action_delta magnified mk_max_speed times, is applied every mk_interval milliseconds.
The first mk_time_to_max actions increase smoothly according to an exponential.
Under the X Window SystemsX.Org and XFree86 used on Unix-like systems such as Linux, BSD, and AIX, MouseKeys (and MouseKeysAccel), when available, is nominally (de)activated by Alt+⇧ Shift+Num Lock.[5] MouseKeys without acceleration (also known as plot mode) is sometimes available with ⇧ Shift+Num Lock. This is nominally independent of the window manager in use, but may be overridden, or even made unavailable by a configuration file.
Before enabling, it may be necessary to change system configuration. The setxkbmap utility can be used to change the configuration under Xorg:[6]
setxkbmap -option keypad:pointerkeys
There are also various utilities to allow more precise control via user-configurable key bindings, such as xmousekeys and xdotool.
Since KDE 5, MouseKeys is enabled and configured by systemsetting5[7] (Hardware → Input Devices → Mouse → Keyboard Navigation)
MouseKeys for Apple Inc.'s macOS is enabled and configured via the Accessibility[8] ([apple] → System Preferences → Accessibility → Mouse & Trackpad).
Replacing the mouse keys by the numeric keypad is as follows:
Typing 5 (with the numeric keypad) is equivalent to clicking the selected button. By default, the selected button is the primary button (nominally under index finger, left button for most right-handed people and right button for most left-handed people). Typing - (with the numeric keypad) selects the alternate button (nominally under ring finger, right button for most right-handed people and left button for most left-handed people). Typing * (with the numeric keypad) selects the modifier button (nominally under the middle finger, middle button of a 3-button mouse). Typing / (with the numeric keypad) selects the primary button. The selection remains in effect until a different button is selected.
Assignment of left/middle/right button to primary/modifier/alternate, alternate/modifier/primary, or something else is settable by many means. Some mice have a switch, that swaps assignment of right and left keys. Many laptop bioses have a setting for mouse button assignment. Many window managers have a setting that permutes the assignment. Within the X Window System core protocol, permutation can be applied by xmodmap.
Moving the pointer by keys
Other than 5, all other numeric keys from the numeric keypad are used to move the pointer on the screen. For example, 8 will move the pointer upwards, while 1 will move it diagonally downwards to the left.
See also
FilterKeys – Accessibility feature of Microsoft Windows
^The X Keyboard Extension: Library Specification, Library Version 1.0/Document Revision 1.1, X Consortium Standard, X Version 11 / Release 6.4, Keyboard Controls, 10.5.2, The MouseKeysAccel Control
^The X Keyboard Extension: Library Specification, Library Version 1.0/Document Revision 1.1, X Consortium Standard, X Version 11 / Release 6.4, Keyboard Controls, 10.5.1, The MouseKeys Control