Numpad hotkeys on linux

From Lucca's Wiki
Revision as of 00:16, 15 August 2025 by Lucka (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Making numpad hotkeys on linux is a bit more tricky than it is on windows due to the critical lack of autohotkey


keyd is an excellent way to make hotkeys:


You can force X11 to ignore specific keyboards by adding a file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/22-ignorethisdevice.conf:

Section "InputClass"
   Identifier "DisableGearHeadNumpad"         
   MatchIsKeyboard "on"
   MatchUSBID "04d9:1503"
   Option "Ignore" "true"
EndSection

I've created a script to handle keys pressed by a specific numpad:

#!/bin/bash
keyd monitor |
while
 read;
 do
 if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "04d9:1503:20f521c9"; then
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp0 down"; then echo "this is button 0";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp1 down"; then echo "this is button 1";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp2 down"; then echo "this is button 2";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp3 down"; then echo "this is button 3";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp4 down"; then echo "this is button 4";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp5 down"; then echo "this is button 5";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp6 down"; then echo "this is button 6";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp7 down"; then echo "this is button 7";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp8 down"; then echo "this is button 8";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kp9 down"; then echo "this is button 9";
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "numlock down"; then echo "this is button numlock";
       ~/sh/rmctrl/commands/lightoff    
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kpslash down"; then echo "this is button /";
       ~/sh/rmctrl/commands/lighton     
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "kpasterisk down"; then echo "this is button *";
       ~/sh/rmctrl/commands/monitoroff  
  fi
  if echo "$REPLY" | fgrep "backspace down"; then echo "this is button backspace";
       ~/sh/rmctrl/commands/monitoron   
  fi
 fi
done


...and a systemd service to autostart it:

[Unit]
Description=Script that handles numpad hotkeys

[Service]
ExecStart=/home/lucka/sh/numpad-hotkeys-keyd.sh
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target



You could also xmodmap, but it has issues with hotplugging. You can use it like this:

xmodmap -e 'keycode 90 = Hyper_R'

You can use XCape to allow the modifier keys to send actions on their own.

sudo apt install xcape xcape -e 'Hyper_R=0'


I've started work on porting my numpad hotkey script to python so it can work on linux: clipboardbuffers.py