[openbox] Using keybind and action to translate/simulate one keystroke into another keystroke?

[Mikael Magnusson]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009, mpb wrote:

> Hi openbox at icculus.org,
>
> I have been using Openbox for 6 months to a year.  Thus far I have
> been able to configure Openbox to do just about everything I want it
> to.
>
> Prior to today, I had been using W-Left and W-Right to switch desktops.
>
>    <keybind key="W-Left">
>      <action name="DesktopLeft">
>        <wrap>no</wrap>
>      </action>
>    </keybind>
>    <keybind key="W-Right">
>      <action name="DesktopRight">
>        <wrap>no</wrap>
>      </action>
>    </keybind>
>
> Today I realized it would be more efficient to use W-j and W-k
> instead, as I would not have to move my right hand to the arrow keys.
> Easy enough to do - I just added the following:
>
>    <keybind key="W-j">
>      <action name="DesktopLeft">
>        <wrap>no</wrap>
>      </action>
>    </keybind>
>    <keybind key="W-k">
>      <action name="DesktopRight">
>        <wrap>no</wrap>
>      </action>
>    </keybind>
>
> I immediately realized that I would also like to be able to press W-L
> and W-; to issue PageUp and PageDown keystrokes.  I could then switch
> desktops and issue PageUp and PageDown keystrokes without moving my
> right hand from the home row.  Is there someway to get Openbox to
> generate simulated keystrokes in response to other specified
> keystrokes?  Or perhaps there is some other, easy, non-Openbox way to
> do this in X Windows?

There's no way to get Openbox to do it, and I think there would be some 
problems if you were to launch some external program to press the key. I 
do have a patch that does it in the mikabox branch in git, basically you 
can say
<action name="SendKeyEvent">
  <key>Prior</key>
  <usetarget>no</usetarget>
</action>

and it would send the key. What i use this for is to send space to an 
mplayer window on another desktop to pause musics :). (which is what the 
usetarget bit is about).

You would have to be somewhat adventurous to try that branch though.

--
Mikael Magnusson