sxhkd
sxhkd is a simple X hotkey daemon, by the developer of bspwm, that reacts to input events by executing commands.
Installation
Install sxhkd or sxhkd-gitAUR.
Configuration
Configuration file
sxhkd defaults to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxhkd/sxhkdrc for its configuration file. An alternate configuration file can be specified with the -c option.
Each line of the configuration file is interpreted as so:
- If it starts with
#, it is ignored. - If it starts with one or more white space commands, it is read as a command.
- Otherwise, it is parsed as a hotkey: each key name is separated by spaces and/or
+characters.
General syntax:
[MODIFIER + ]*[@|!]KEYSYM
COMMAND
Where MODIFIER is one of the following names: super, hyper, meta, alt, control, ctrl, shift, mode_switch, lock, mod1, mod2, mod3, mod4, mod5. If @ is added at the beginning of the keysym, the command will be run on key release events, otherwise on key press events. If ! is added at the beginning of the keysym, the command will be run on motion notify events and must contain two integer conversion specifications which will be replaced by the x and y coordinates of the pointer relative to the root window referential (the only valid button keysyms for this type of hotkeys are: button1, ..., button5). The KEYSYM names are those your will get from xev.
Mouse hotkeys can be defined by using one of the following special keysym names: button1, button2, button3, ..., button24. The hotkey can contain a sequence of the form {STRING_1,…,STRING_N}, in which case, the command must also contain a sequence with N elements: the pairing of the two sequences generates N hotkeys. In addition, the sequences can contain ranges of the form A-Z where A and Z are alphanumeric characters.
What is actually executed is SHELL -c COMMAND, which means you can use environment variables in COMMAND. SHELL will be the content of the first defined environment variable in the following list: SXHKD_SHELL, SHELL. If sxhkd receives a SIGUSR1 signal, it will reload its configuration file.
Usage
After configuring it, you may wish to setup sxhkd to autostart.
Example
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxhkd/sxhkdrc
# On mouse button 1 press Alt_R+F1
button1
xte "keydown Alt_R" "keydown F1" "keyup Alt_R" "keyup F1"
# On mouse button 2 pause 3 seconds then press Alt_R+F2
button2
xte "sleep 3" "keydown Alt_R" "keydown F2" "keyup Alt_R" "keyup F2"
Reload user's sxhkd service
$ systemctl --user reload sxhkd
See also
- Official website - includes configuration options, example bindings, and source code.
- ArchLinux forum thread