EVBindKeys

Like XBindKeys but without the X and per device.

EVBindKeys allows mapping arbitrary key events of specific input devices to shell command invocations.

Under the hood, it accesses the evdev kernel interface using libevdev.

Motivation

I found some cheap mini USB keyboards and decided to use them as shortcut boards. As every keyboard sends the same keycodes, I needed something that can differentiate between multiple input devices.

Additionally, I wanted to have something that works on a headless device without having to install X server.

Usage

• Find the input device you want to use (ls -l /dev/input/by-id)
• Ensure that you have access to the input device (sudo chown [user] /dev/input/by-id/example-event-kbd)
• Lookup the name of the keys you want to use (https://github.com/ndesh26/evdev-rs/blob/0.5.0/src/enums.rs#L304)
• Create a config based on the example.toml
• Execute evbindkeys [config-file]