xkbevd(1) xkbevd(1)
xkbevd - XKB event daemon
xkbevd [option ...]
This command is very raw and is therefore only partially implemented;
we present it here as a rough prototype for developers, not as a gen‐
eral purpose tool for end users. Something like this might make a
suitable replacement for xev(1); I’m not signing up, mind you, but it’s
an interesting idea.
The xkbevd event daemon listens for specified XKB events and executes
requested commands if they occur. The configuration file consists of a
list of event specification/action pairs and/or variable definitions.
An event specification consists of a short XKB event name followed by a
string or identifier which serves as a qualifier in parentheses; empty
parentheses indicate no qualification and serve to specify the default
command, which is applied to events which do not match any of the other
specifications. The interpretation of the qualifier depends on the
type of the event: bell events match using the name of the bell; mes‐
sage events match on the contents of the message string; and slow key
events accept any of press, release, accept, or reject. No other
events are currently recognized.
An action consists of an optional keyword followed by an optional
string argument. Currently, xkbevd recognizes the actions none,
ignore, echo, printEvent, sound, and shell. If the action is not spec‐
ified, the string is taken as the name of a sound file to be played
unless it begins with an exclamation point, in which case it is taken
as a shell command.
Variable definitions in the argument string are expanded with fields
from the event in question before the argument string is passed to the
action processor. The general syntax for a variable is either $c or
$(str), where c is a single character and str is a string of arbitrary
length. All parameters have both single-character and long names.
The list of recognized parameters varies from event to event and is too
long to list here right now. This is a developer release anyway, so
you can be expected to look at the source code (evargs.c is of particu‐
lar interest).
The ignore, echo, printEvent, sound, and shell actions do what you
would expect commands named ignore, echo, printEvent, sound, and shell
to do, except that the sound command has only been implemented and
tested for SGI machines. It launches an external program right now, so
it should be pretty easy to adapt, especially if you like audio cues
that arrive about a half-second after you expect them.
The only currently recognized variables are soundDirectory and sound‐
Cmd. I’m sure you can figure out what they do.
-?, -help
Print a usage message that is far more up-to-date than anything
in this manpage (or not).
-bg Fork and run in the background.
-cfg file
Read the specified configuration file. If no configuration file
is specified, xkbevd looks for $HOME/.xkb/xkbevd.cf and
/usr/lib/X11/xkb/xkbevd.cf, in that order.
-d display, -display display
Connect to the X server at display. If not specified, xkbevd
uses $DISPLAY.
-s, -synch
Force synchronization of all X requests. Slow.
-sc cmd
Use the command cmd to play sounds.
-sd directory
Look for sound files at the file specification directory (should
be an absolute path).
-v Print more information, including debugging messages. Multiple
specifications of -v cause more output, to a point.
X(7), setxkbmap(1), xkbbell(1), xkbcomp(1), xkbprint(1), xkbvleds(1),
xkbwatch(1)
Copyright 1995 Silicon Graphics Computer Systems
Copyright 1995, 1998 The Open Group
See X(7) for a full statement of rights and permissions.
Erik Fortune, Silicon Graphics
X Version 11 xkbevd 1.0.2 xkbevd(1)