hotkeyman

Simple tool to manage your hotkeys under Windows and under X11 based desktops like Gnome or KDE.

General Information

hotkeyman -- short for "Hotkey-Manager"
The Windows version uses the Windows-API function RegisterHotKey() to register user-defined hotkeys.
For X11 systems the xhklib library is used to define hotkeys. More information on this library: github.com/jwmcode/xhklib.
The user is able to define his own hotkeys and their desired effect. More on that in the Configuration-section.

Installation

Windows

Simply put a link-file (*.lnk) to the hotkeyman-binary in your auto-start directory. Usually this directory is located under C:\Users\[Your_User]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Window s\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.
During the next boot of windows hotkeyman will automatically start and manage your defined hotkeys.

GNU/Linux (GNOME-like DE's)

Create a .desktop-file and put it in the following directory: /home/<user>/.config/autostart
The .desktop-file should execute the hotkeyman-binary.
For more information on how to write a .desktop-file visit the following website: gnome.org.

Configuration

You will find a configuration-file called hotkeyman.conf in the root directory of hotkeyman. It already contains an example of how to define your own hotkeys:
cmd="start calc.exe" keys="1 2 0 C";
IMPORTANT: If you are using GNU/Linux or Unix you should add an ampersand at the end of the command! For instance:
cmd="gnome-calculator &" keys="1 2 0 C";
Every hotkey-definition contains two key-value pairs.

cmd: The command that will be executed when the hotkey is triggered.
keys: The keys that represent the hotkey
- Values are delimited with spaces.
- The first three digits are used to define key-modifiers.
  - 1 stands for [ALT]
  - 2 stands for [CTRL]
  - 4 stands for [SHIFT]
  - 8 stands for [WINDOWS-KEY / META-KEY]
  - 0 means that this modifier is not used
    - For example: Write keys="0 0 0 C" defines the hotkey [C].
    - Whereas keys="1 2 0 C" defines the hotkey [ALT]+[CTRL]+[C]
  - For more information take a look at this.
- The last character represents the key that is pressed.

All together, the example above defines a hotkey 'C' with the modifier-keys [CTRL] and [ALT]. When the hotkey is triggered, the windows-calculator is started.
Note the semicolon ';' at the end of the example line. It tells the hotkeyman that it's the end of the current hotkey definition. This allows you to spread the hotkey-definition over various lines:
cmd="start calc.exe"
keys="1 2 0 C";
After each semicolon a new hotkey-definition can follow.

Building hotkeyman

Use the existing Makefile to build the hotkeyman-binary. Type
make or make debug to build a debug-version
make release to build a release-version.

GNU/Linux

In order to build hotkeyman you need to download xhklib from github.com/jwmcode/xhklib.
The referenced repository contains two files that you have to put into the root directory of hotkeyman:

xhklib.h
xhklib.c

Once you have copied the files into the hotkeyman directory you should be able to build hotkeyman.

Differences between build targets under Windows

The debug-build will show a console-window and various debug-messages during the run-time of hotkeyman.
For the relase-build there is only a log-file called hotkeyman.log available to view debug-messages. The hotkeyman-process runs in the background without any graphical properties.

stefanpartheym/hotkeyman