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#1 2007-03-22 09:24:27

Master One
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-01-21
Posts: 249

Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

kmilo allows the simple use of extra-buttons on laptops (like on my ThinkPad), by assigning commands to be executed on button press, with additional support of special buttons (like the "Access IBM" key, that does not have a keycode and does not issue a button event, making it invisible to xev), and also offers a nice OSD for certain button actions (like volume change, mute, ...).

Is there something similar for Gnome?

The only alternative I know of is tbp+xosd, which leads to the same functionality (without a GUI to configure it, and the OSD is kind of ugly), but does not really seem to be stable (when I tried tbp+xosd in Xfce 4.4.0, it mostly just died after some time).

Last edited by Master One (2007-03-22 09:24:47)

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#2 2007-03-22 09:47:13

lessthanjake
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From: Norway
Registered: 2005-11-09
Posts: 319
Website

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

It its possible to use the standard keyboad shortcuts app for at least some special buttons(the one detected by xev), and if you do that you get OSD volume change/mute. This works at least with the Fn-buttons on my laptop and the special buttons on my diNovo Logitec keyboard.

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#3 2007-03-22 14:37:30

Master One
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-01-21
Posts: 249

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

Indeed, just played around a bit on another computer with a MS Multimedia Keyboard, and most extra buttons are recognized, and Gnome shows an OSD for volume change and mute. But I this will not work on my ThinkPad, because the volume and mute keys are hardwired (they do not have a keycode, ame as that blue "Access IBM" button. kmilo has the proper functionality, to nevertheless recognize these buttons, and also shows an OSD for them.

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#4 2007-03-22 22:39:42

Phrodo_00
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From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2006-04-09
Posts: 342
Website

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

did you try the Key shorcuts preferences? (It might not be called like that, I translated it back from spanish). I were able to set up all the keys easily.

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#5 2007-03-23 08:11:17

Master One
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2007-01-21
Posts: 249

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

As mentioned, the shortcut preferences only can be used for buttons, which have a keycode and issue a button-event. On a thinkpad, some special keycombinations (like Fn+F5) do not result in a button-event, but in an ACPI-event, and some keys (like "Access IBM", volume & mute) are hardwired and do not result in any event (these can only be accessed through the nvram kernel module). kmilo can handle these buttons through nvram, as well as the mentioned tpb+xosd, but it does not look like, there is an own Gnome solution for that.

P.S. This is not only a ThinkPad related matter, because quite some other notebooks have it the same way.

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#6 2008-11-09 11:54:16

iosonofabio
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-10-09
Posts: 105

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

I reopen the topic because it has not essentially been solved yet (as far as I know).

I'm using a T60 and the volume/mute buttons do not generate any event in xev. However, they do correctly modify the volume level. I see that in the Ubuntu (Hardy and Intrepid) version of Gnome the same keys get recognized as buttons, though there are other open issues in that case.

The situation is the following. Volume buttons do generate ACPI events which can be read in /proc/acpi/ibm/volume, e.g.:

$ cat /proc/acpi/ibm/volume 
level:        11
mute:        off
commands:    up, down, mute
commands:    level <level> (<level> is 0-15)

However, these ACPI events are not connected to any xev-like button event.

I'm using kernel version:

$ uname -rv
2.6.27-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Oct 26 10:36:46 UTC 2008

with thinkpad-acpi module enabled. Other mosules I use are (from rc.conf):

MODULES=(thinkpad-acpi e1000e iwl3945 snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep 
snd-page-alloc snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-intel soundcore !pcspkr 
!snd-pcsp acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave)

I posted the same problem on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=966588, since there is a user (AnythingBut) who has written a gnome-patch to resolve the issue. Sadly enough, the patch is a debian-like one.

Has anyone resolved this issue in a direct way, i.e. without using tpb, volwheel or similar?

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#7 2008-11-09 17:20:03

doorknob60
Member
Registered: 2008-09-29
Posts: 403

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

Maybe Keytouch is what you're looking for. I just discovered it yesterday and mapped all my keys, it worked well and it was easy. Even has an Amarok plugin to map them to Amarok controls from within Keytouch smile

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#8 2008-11-09 18:28:27

iosonofabio
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-10-09
Posts: 105

Re: Is there something like KDE's kmilo for Gnome?

doorknob60 wrote:

Maybe Keytouch is what you're looking for.

Thanks for the advice. Anyway, as I wrote in my previous post, I'm trying to get it to work in a proper way, that is:

ACPI event ---> Button (xev) event ---> Gnome shortcut

without using any external utility such as tpb or keytouch.

As an update, I searched a bit in the net and found that the first problem resides probably in the thinkpad-acpi module, for it can not connect the acpi event to any xev-relevant event. Further help would be appreciated.

Last edited by iosonofabio (2008-11-09 18:28:58)

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