Use of laptop fn hotkeys on WMs/DEs that don't natively support them

Jike · 2021-11-15 23:31:03

Hey everyone, I'm running arch on a HP laptop, which has a "fn" key which back on windows allowed me to raise or decrease the volume, brightness, etc. By for example pressing fn + f6 or fn + f7, I was surprised that the keys still worked on the major desktop enviroments like KDE, MATE, Xfce, etc. But now I'm experimenting with minimalist WMs like bspwm which lacks these functions right out of the box, I was wondering if there is a stand-alone solution or a way to take the fn hotkeys from the other DEs to make them usable with bspwm other than manually setting the hotkeys on sxhkdrc.

Thank you for the assistance!

Last edited by Jike (2021-11-15 23:31:18)

jonno2002 · 2021-11-16 02:06:22

here some info about volume and brightness
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xbindk … io_control

Trilby · 2021-11-16 02:31:57

Jike wrote:

... usable with bspwm other than manually setting the hotkeys on sxhkdrc.

Well, no. sxhk is what bspwm uses for binding keys. This is no different that the big DEs you had used except the came "pre-configured" and generally made it harder for you to change that configuration.

You could use something else in place of sxhk, but you do need to configure something to listen to those keys. As noted above xbindkeys is fairly general, and if you plan on tinkering with a variety of WMs that might be a reasonable way to go. But most "minimalist" WMs have their own built in mechanism for binding keys - it's always seemed better to use the WM's own tools rather than running an additional background process just for listening for bound keys.

Jike · 2021-11-16 02:55:56

I see, I guess I'll go try set something up with sxhk then.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-11-15 23:31:03

Use of laptop fn hotkeys on WMs/DEs that don't natively support them

#2 2021-11-16 02:06:22

Re: Use of laptop fn hotkeys on WMs/DEs that don't natively support them

#3 2021-11-16 02:31:57

Re: Use of laptop fn hotkeys on WMs/DEs that don't natively support them

#4 2021-11-16 02:55:56

Re: Use of laptop fn hotkeys on WMs/DEs that don't natively support them

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