Ubuntu – Map Double Click to Key Combination

keyboardmouse

I'm currently using xbindkeys and xdotool to map certain keyboard/mouse combinations to various keyboard shortcuts.

Now, I'm trying to set up my mouse such that double-clicking the middle mouse button presses Ctrl+W (so I can close tabs in Google Chrome by simply double clicking the middle button). Is it possible for xbindkeys to detect double clicks separately from single clicks? If so, how would I do this, and if not, is there an alternative option available?

Best Answer

This question is from 2014, but probably someone still have this problem, so I wanted to share my solution. Before getting to my single line of code, please note, that xbindkeys supports a guile configuration (http://www.nongnu.org/xbindkeys/xbindkeysrc.scm.html) where you can add advanced functionality. I didn't check it out, but probably this will be the best solution for it.

When you want to stick with your old configuration, I wrote a small 'hack' to archive a double action:

"if ls ~/.xbk_double_caps; then [YOUR COMMAND]; else touch ~/.xbk_double_caps; sleep .5; rm ~/.xbindkeys_doubleclick; fi"

    Caps_Lock

This script will activate [YOUR COMMAND] when Caps_Lock key is pressed two times in 0.5 seconds. It checkes if a temporary file exists. If not, it'll touch this file but delete it after 0.5 seconds. Between touching and deleting, [YOUR COMMAND] can be triggered.

It works great for me.

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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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