Openbox – How to Set a Single Modifier Key as a Shortcut

desktop-environmentkeyboard shortcutsopenbox

I want to have my super key start dmenu.
I have set it as a keyboard shortcut in my rc.xml as follows:

<keybind key="0xffeb">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>dmenu_run</command>
      </action>
</keybind>

I tried specifying it in the key attribute as W, W-, and 0xffeb, but none of these worked.
W responds to pressing the letter w, and the others appear to do nothing.

I want the shortcut to trigger when the super key is pressed and released on it's own. Is this possible?

This is cross posted from super user as per the guidelines here. I've read this question: Super key as shortcut – Openbox, but I didn't see any useful information in it.

Best Answer

I ended up using xcape, a utility designed to do exactly this:

xcape allows you to use a modifier key as another key when pressed and released on its own. Note that it is slightly slower than pressing the original key, because the pressed event does not occur until the key is released.

^{Quoted from the xcape readme}

Using xcape, you can assign the press and release of a modifier key to a different key or even a sequence of keys. For example, you can assign Super to a placeholder shortcut like ⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift⎇ Alt SuperD with:

xcape -e 'Super_L=Control_L|Shift_L|Alt_L|Super_L|D'

Now when you press and release Super without pressing any other keys, xcape will send keyboard events simulating presses of ⎈ Ctrl⇧ Shift⎇ Alt SuperD (holding all the modifier keys down as if you pressed them like a shortcut).

If you press Super and another key (or hold Super too long, the default timeout is 500 ms), xcape will pass the keyboard events through as is, without firing extra keys.

If you put the placeholder shortcut in rc.xml, it will run when Super and only Super is pressed.

<keybind key="C-A-S-W-d">
      <action name="Execute">
          <command>dmenu_run</command>
      </action>
</keybind>

Other shortcuts involving Super will not be affected.

Note that you'll have to run xcape each time you boot, so you may want to put it somewhere like ~/.config/openbox/autostart where it will be run automatically.

Related Solutions

Openbox Keyboard Shortcuts – How to Assign to Specific Applications

Alt+Space, x is the default shortcut for maximize/unmaximize in most window managers. Does that work?

Or maybe it's Alt+F6 and Alt+F7 as suggested in the Actions Documentation.

If not, you can add a binding using the information in the Openbox Bindings Documentation, but it sounds like you can only set shortcuts for all windows, not just for one program.

In brief, you find your rc.xml file, then add something like this in the middle of it:

<keybind key="A-F6">
  <action name="MaximizeFull"/>
</keybind>

Unless you meant unminimize / restore rather than maximize, i.e. a binding that works even when the window isn't focussed.

In that case, I'd suggest using xbindkeys and wmctrl. You'd have to write a script that runs wmctrl to find the uzbl window using wmctrl -l, then run either wmctrl -a <win> or wmctrl -R <win>, then add an entry in .xbindkeysrc to run that script whenever a specific keyboard combination was pressed.

Adding key bindings for “Fn” + “Control” key in openbox

Different window managers can use different keyboard mappings, and the keymapping defines how your Fn key is recognized. This is why what works in XFCE doesn't necessarily work in Openbox.

To check how X (and Openbox) interpret your Fn key, follow this guide.

Based on the results, you can either use the appropriate key symbol in rc.xml instead of Fn.
Fn on my Thinkpad is recognized as XF86WakeUp for instance. If it has no symbol assigned, you can assign one manually with xmodmap as per this guide and then use that symbol in rc.xml.

Investigating further, it turns out that Fn is a special key on some notebooks (like IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads) in that the Keypress and Keyrelease events (or Keydown and Keyup in Microsoft terms) are generated simultaneously and only when the key is released. Further keypresses while Fn is depressed are simply not registered*. With xev, you can easily check if this is the case with your system as well.

This means that Fn cannot be used as a modifier key (combined with other keys like Alt, Ctrl or Shift). It can be assigned as a shortcut on its own though. Combined with Openbox's keychains, this is almost as good as using it as a modifier. You just have to release it before pressing the key you combine it with.

* There must be some way of registering keys combined with Fn though at least on Thinkpads, as Lenovo's own Windows tools do react to Fn plus other keys. But this seems to happen at a very low level. When I am in a VMWare guest on a Windows host, pressing Fn plus a key opens the appropriate tool in the Windows host, not in the guest OS. It would be interesting to look into the implementation of similar Thinkpad tools on Linux to see how they cope with Fn.

Here you find more Thinkpad-specific info on how Fn+Fx key combos generate ACPI events, which is what the Thinkpad tools react to. However, I suppose those events are only generated for specific combinations with Fx keys and not for other key combinations.

The page also describes how you can make ACPI events trigger key events. However, if Fn keydown and keyup don't generate separate events of their own (I believe they don't on Thinkpads), this doesn't really get you any further.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Openbox Keyboard Shortcuts – How to Assign to Specific Applications

Adding key bindings for “Fn” + “Control” key in openbox

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