Ubuntu – Alt Tab with xdotool and xkeybind

mouseshortcut-keys

I'm trying to map alt tab behavior to a mouse button using xdotool in my .xbindkeysrc. What I want to do is map something like

"xdotools keydown alt key Tab"
release b:7

but by doing this the alt key gets stuck, and it prevents my other mappings from working until I press the alt key on the keyboard. Is there a way to do this without having to press the alt key to get things unstuck? Without keydown it just switches back and forth between two windows, with keydown it behaves like I want (displaying the alt-tab switcher) but the alt key is stuck. Is there a way to unstick the key after using the alt tab switcher using xdotools?

Best Answer

"xdotool keydown alt key Tab; sleep 2; xdotool keyup alt"
b:7

The sleep interval allows me to access the menu and choose, and then it closes automatically. It's probably not the best solution but it works. If anyone has a better alternative please let me know. I find that xbindkeys only seems to work intermittentlly. It does not work on the overview (not for this command, but for a button tied to the super key. And after installing docky, I fnid that it does not work unless there is an open window available in the workspace. Odd behavior.

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Ubuntu – How to use Alt + GraveAccent on non-US keyboard

Ah, I found an answer after posting the above: Apparently the shortcut is not the grave-accent specifically but rather "whatever key is above Tab in your current layout" -- exactly as I wanted!

Fascinating!

Ubuntu – Map Ctrl and Alt to mouse thumb buttons

i found a working solution here. it uses Easystroke (sudo apt install easystroke). kudos to @stuartr from ubuntuforums!

though there was one issue - re-mapped mouse click sporadically fired an original ('back' in my case) event. to avoid this, mouse button can be remapped to some unused number with xinput set-button-map (sudo apt install xinput). to re-map on every login i've created (exacutable) $HOME/.config/autostart/mouse-buttons.sh with this content:

$ cat .config/autostart/mouse-buttons.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash

mi_mouse_id=$(xinput | grep 'GTech MI wireless mouse.*pointer' | sed 's/.*\tid=\([0-9]*\)\t.*/\1/')
xinput set-button-map $mi_mouse_id 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 20 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
$

this maps mouse button 8 to button 20. hopefully button 20 has no meaning. at least it has absolutely no effect for me. now it's time to re-map button 20 to Ctrl:

Preferences tab: additional buttons -> add -> radio button 'Instant Gestures' -> click the mouse button of choice in the grey area (for me a 'back, thumb button' became '(Instantly) Button 20')
Preferences tab: Select 'Autostart Easystroke'
Actions tab: Add Action
Name: anything you like (e.g. 'Mouse 20 -> Ctrl')
Type: 'Ignore'
Details: click it once to change 'Ignore' to 'Key combination...'. then press Ctrl + a. 'a' doesn't matter and is ignored. 'Key Combination' will be replaced with 'Ctr'
With the new action selected/highlighted -> click 'Record Stroke' -> press the mouse button you're wanting to use again (this came up with '20 -> 20' in the Stroke column for me)
Now pressing and holding my mouse button brings up a dinky 'Ctr' on the screen and acts like the button is being held for as long as the mouse button is

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – How to use Alt + GraveAccent on non-US keyboard

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