Client:xmms2hotkey

File:Client-xmms2hotkey.png

• Author: Adam Nielsen
• Latest version: 0.4 (2011-11-23), stable and working well as at 2014-10-04
• Homepage: https://github.com/Malvineous/xmms2hotkey/downloads
• Development language: C++
• User interface: Console
• Screenshots: (No UI)

xmms2hotkey is a lightweight client for controlling XMMS2 via keyboard or mouse buttons (or combinations thereof.) It works under X-Windows and can also use the Linux evdev system to allow hotkeys to be used in the console.

Main features

• Can work without X11 (evdev can be used to have hotkeys in the Linux console)
• Works with mice, keyboards, joysticks and other HID devices
• Supports activation keys (one key/button must be held for others to control XMMS2)
• Automatically reconnects to input devices if they are lost (e.g. docking/undocking a laptop or switching off a monitor with USB hub causing device disconnection)

How it works

The client is supplied with a list of devices to monitor, such as a local or remote X11 display (to use the keyboard and mouse attached to that display), or an evdev device (such as a keyboard, mouse or USB device with buttons on it.)

A list of keys are then defined, with appropriate scancodes (which differ for each device.) This allows multiple buttons across different devices to be treated as the same "key".

Possible actions (play, pause, etc.) are then associated with each of the defined keys. Each action can have multiple keys defined, to allow one key to "activate" the other. For example you wouldn't want to use the mouse wheel to adjust the song volume, as you would then be unable to scroll web pages (the volume would just change whenever you tried.) You could however set a thumb button to "activate" a second set of hotkeys, so that holding down the thumb button then switches the wheel into volume-mode. When you're not pressing the thumb button the mouse wheel can then be used to scroll normally.