NAME¶

fluxbox-keys - keyboard shortcuts configuration for fluxbox(1)

SYNOPSIS¶

~/.fluxbox/keys

SYNTAX¶

Variable parameters are shown in emphasis: argument

Optional parameters are shown in square brackets: [argument]

All other characters shown are required verbatim. Whitespace is required where shown, but it is fine to add more whitespace.

DESCRIPTION¶

The keys file defines the keyboard shortcuts for fluxbox(1).

You can customize fluxbox’s key handling through the ~/.fluxbox/keys file. The file consists of lines of the basic format:

[modifiers] key :'command' [arguments ...]

The space between the key and the : before the command is mandatory.

All modifiers and commands are case-insensitive. Some command arguments (especially those that will be passed to the shell) are case-sensitive. Some key names are case-sensitive.

Lines beginning with a # or ! are considered comments and are unread by fluxbox.

You will need to “reload” fluxbox after editing the keys file so it picks up your change.

MODIFIERS¶

You can get a list of possible modifiers by calling ‘xmodmap -pm’. This also shows you to which keys the modifiers are mapped, but the following modifiers are most commonly used:

Shift Control Mod1 Mod4

where Mod1 is the Alt key on the PC keyboard and Mod4 is usually a key branded with a familiar company logo.

There are also some special modifiers that refer to mouse button events

KEYS¶

You may specify a key by its key name (for example, a or space) or by its numeric keycode (for example, 38 or 0xf3).

If you don’t know the name of a key, you can run xev(1) in a terminal, push the key, and see the name in the output. If you have some "special" keys that do not produce a key name in the output of xev(1), you can just use the keycode (NOT the keysym!) in your keys file.

Commands can also be bound to mouse events (N denotes the number of the button, eg. 1 is the primary button, 4/5 are the wheel buttons):

MouseN

ClickN

MoveN

There are some special "keys" that let you bind events to non-keyboard events:

ChangeWorkspace

CHAINING¶

Key bindings can be chained in a fashion similar to Emacs key bindings using the syntax:

modifiers-1 key-1 modifiers-2 key-2 :'command' [arguments ...]*

To abort a chained command part-way through typing it, press the <ESC> key.

To Bind CTRL+C CTRL+X (Which means, press CTRL+C then CTRL+X) to quit fluxbox.

Control c Control x :Quit

KEYMODES¶

A specific set of key mappings can be activated and de-activated on-the-fly using what are called keymodes. The syntax to define a mapping in a keymode is:

keymode: modifiers key :'command' [arguments ...]

Where keymode is any alpha-numeric string name.

When this keymode is activated (see the KeyMode command below), all bindings prefaced by that keymode name become active (and all other keybindings will be deactivated) until the keymode changes again.

COMMANDS¶

Some commands have multiple names which are shown below as

Related commands have been grouped below as

The commands are broken up into sections as follows

MacroCmd {MoveTo 0 0} {ResizeTo 1280 800}

CLIENT PATTERNS¶

Many of the more advanced commands take a pattern argument, which allows you to direct the action at a specific window or set of windows which match the properties specified in the pattern.

A pattern looks like this

Match definitions are enclosed in parentheses (...), and if no propertyname is given then Name is assumed. The regexp can contain any regular expression, or the special value [current], which matches the corresponding value of the currently focused window. See regex(7) for more information on acceptable regular expressions.

propertyname is not case sensitive, whereas the regexp is.

If you specify multiple (pattern) arguments, this implies an AND condition - All specified patterns must match.

You can use = to test for equality or != to test for inequality.

The following values are accepted for propertyname

Matches any windows with the CLASSNAME of "xterm".

(xterm)

Matches any windows with the same CLASSNAME as the currently focused window.

(Name=[current])

Matches any windows on the same head as the mouse but on a different layer than the currently focused window.

(Head=[mouse]) (Layer!=[current])

Matches any windows having a xproperty named FOO with "bar" in it.

(@FOO=.*bar.*)

FILES¶

~/.fluxbox/keys

/usr/X11R6/include/X11/keysymdef.h

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB

RESOURCES¶

session.keyFile: location

ENVIRONMENT¶

Remember that ExecCommand command can take advantage of other environment variables if they are set before fluxbox is started, or via the Export or SetEnv commands. For example, if $TERM is set, it could be use like this:

Mod1 x :ExecCommand $TERM

For more information about environment variables, see your shell’s manual.

EXAMPLES¶

Here are some interesting and/or useful examples you can do with your keys file.

# Mod4+drag moves a window
OnWindow Mod4 Mouse1 :StartMoving
# If any xterm windows are open, cycle through them. If none are open, open
# one:
Mod4 t :If {Some Matches (xterm)} {NextWindow (xterm)} {Exec xterm}
# Set a different wallpaper on every workspace:
ChangeWorkspace :Exec fbsetbg ~/.fluxbox/bg$(xprop -root _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP | awk '{print $3}').png
# Focusses the next window with it's xproperty 'PROP' set to 'foo'
Mod4 p Mod4 Tab :NextWindow (@PROP=foo)

AUTHORS¶

SEE ALSO¶

fluxbox(1) xprop(1) xev(1) xkill(1) regex(7)

AUTHOR¶

Jim Ramsay <i.am@jimramsay.com>