Comment 18 for bug 167290

Thank you for this in-depth analysis and workaround for the X11 keymapping issue!

This basic mapping works fine on my MBP with 10.5.8 and XQuartz 2.3.2 - 2.4.0 (though I only use the minimum: left Option key to 'Alt_L', nothing else). It does not interfere with other X11 GTK2 apps like the GIMP - if anything it helps because (like Inkscape) GIMP relies on the real 'Alt_L' keycode for some of the shortcuts (like e.g. moving a selection).

My main concern - should any xmodmap mechanism be included into the osx package - is the ongoing development process of X11/XQuartz:
1) some current versions of the XQuartz server seem to expose a bug that can loose or ignore the keymap configuration in ~/.Xmodmap (see <http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/xquartz-dev/2009-October/002560.html>). It's not clear to me from the occasionally mentioning I found in the mailing list archives of xquartz-dev and X11-users if this will be fixed in the next XQuartz releases for Leopard and SL. I haven't experienced the bug on my system though.
2) any future release might change the default key-mappings again - as has happened before (like changing the Option-key from Alt_L to Mode_Switch AFAIK)?

Another question I could not find an answer yet:
3) Do you know if the keycodes listed above (the hex codes) are the same on all models (laptop/desktop) and localized keyboards?

I'm hesitant to changing the keymapping when installing or launching Inkscape - OTOH I know from reading numerous postings in Inkscape and GIMP user forums that tinkering with dotfiles like .Xmodmap is a major obstacle for many users who are not familiar with the terminal and the command line and who just want to use font kerning within Inkscape.