trying to reinvent the wheel so to speak

[LinuxDolt]

i'm trying to make a bash script that will capture F-Key presses and then perform an action depending on what F-Key was pressed... ie: you press F1 and it opens xman or varient...

so i was wondering if anyone could help me in this endeavor, i have been reading the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide to try and figure out how to do this, but reading that is like reading Japanese, it is a slow and painful process for someone brand new to linux and especially to BASH...

and yes, the reason i say i am trying to reinvent the wheel is because i realize that the major de's, wm's, and other packages already have support for this using C(++) and either qt/gtk+/other libraries, but i really think it'd be nice to have a shot at doing a script for it, and also none of the software out there does quite what i want...

[Pythonhead]

Bash has the 'read' command, but it only works if you press enter.
So, you really can't do it easily, unless you want to press F1 then enter.

Here is a hack:

[aja]

I don't know about bash, but in zsh, you can bind function keys in your .zshrc with calls like:

[LinuxDolt]

[vericgar]

[LinuxDolt]

ok, i have changed my way of going about this, i am now going to use xbindkeys and just have xbindkeys run scripts for each of the commands... anyone know how to pass commands to xosd from a bash script?

as for that amixer stuff, anyone have any good bash text editing commands faqs/howtos/guides i could refer to to rip out just the portion i want?

[Pythonhead]

xosd is a C library, so you're not going to be able to access if directly from Bash. I think there is a sample program with it called osd_cat that might work. If not, you need a higher level language interface to it. Probably Python would be the easiest:

http://repose.cx/pyosd/index.html

[LinuxDolt]

thank you python, but you kinda answered with it exactly as i was figuring that out myself... (i got the wise idea to do ls searching for it, ie ls /usr/bin/*osd* ls /usr/sbin/*osd* ls /bin/*osd* etc on different lines, it came out with /usr/bin/osd_cat /usr/bin/xosd-config -- i brought up the man pages for them both, and osd_cat is the one i want)

now i just need to find a good guide on text handling in bash... the guide i am using kinda half-asses that topic...

[LinuxDolt]

the project is almost complete! i have, as i stated earlier, decided to go with making a library of scripts for use with xbindkeys and xosd. the default library will come with a default customized .xbindkeysrc file to be copied to your home dir, scripts for starting a word processor, spreadsheet, webcam, file browser (like konquorer), email app, web browser (MozillaFirebird), calendar (iCal by default), Help browser, Control Center/Panel App(let), File searcher (kfind), graphics editor (gimp), and starting any miscellanious Internet/Networking prog of your choice (kaddressbook by default). there'll also be scripts for MUTE, VolUp, and VolDown toggle/incrementers (uses ALSA by default) and for controlling your favorite (xmms by default) multimedia app with a prev, stop, play-pause, and next script.

due to the nature of this library it is EXTREMELY low-overhead, it only uses what overhead it takes to use xbindkeys, xosd, and the apps you have it scripted for. it is also highly configurable and most inordinately simple. as long as you have a minimal knowledge of bash scripting (i didn't use anything particularly fancy) and know how xbindkeys works (also nothing difficult) you can figure out how to edit my scripts to your needs -- or even make new ones using the same general practices. i explain much in the comments of the scripts and the config file...

if anyone would like to try it out, lemme know your email and i'll send you a binary xMEAK-0.1.tar.gz

remember, in order to use this, you must have x-windows, xosd, and xbindkeys... i do not believe there are any other requirements, except that you need to edit the scripts to your needs...
my email is slicersv@buckeye-express.com