NumPad layer without NumPad plugin?

[jamadagni (Shriramana Sharma)]

Is it really necessary to use the NumPad plugin for numpad functionality? I mean, if I don’t care for the LED effects provided by that plugin is there really anything else that it provides that I can’t accomplish with an ordinary layer?

[tiltowaitt (tiltowait)]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but … Numlock is a software feature in addition to a keyboard mode—your OS knows if the keyboard is in numlock or not (and can tell the keyboard to switch into/out of it?). The NumPad plugin sets that flag in addition to changing layers.

Do you actually need it? Eh, probably not. If you’re using a Mac, you certainly don’t need it.

Here’s some more info:

On the history and implementation of NumLock

So, I feel it’s time for another mild rant about leaky abstractions. NumLock is a kludge. It is a kludge designed for the first IBM PC so that a directional pad and a numpad could be supported on the same limited keyboard. Its inadequacy was soon evident, so the PC/AT model M and all subsequent IBM compatible PCs have supported keyboards with separate directional and numeric keys. To its eternal credit, Apple never implemented NumLock. To its eternal shame, Linux did. Unfortuna…

[andrewg (Andrew Gallagher)]

@tiltowaitt

Do you actually need it? Eh, probably not. If you’re using a Mac, you certainly don’t need it.

If you’re using a Mac, NumLock can actually cause odd behaviour, because the numlock keycode is equivalent to “Key_Clear”. But it all depends on what your Mac detects your keyboard as, which is yet another layer of abstraction… O_o