9

I'm trying to bind a switch window button on my mouse into Ubuntu. Currently I'm trying to do it with xbindkeys and xte, but do this in .xbindkeysrc only outputs a Tab and doesn't switch windows.

Current .xbindkeysrc code: 

"'xte' 'keydown Alt_L' 'keydown Tab' 'keyup Tab' 'keyup Alt_L'"
   b:10

I am wondering if there is a different command I could put that would directly give instructions to switch windows.

EDIT: I also tried xdotool, here is the code using it:

 "xdotool keydown alt key Tab && sleep 1 && xdotool keyup alt"
    b:10

It didn't work either.

EDIT2: I tried the xdotool one in the command line and it worked. Is there some reason it doesn't work with xbindkeys?

PitaJ
  • 752

5 Answers5

5

I got it to work. Turns out that I needed to put a pause between keydown alt and key tab. I also put the xdotool code in an .sh file so I could modify it without restarting xbindkeys every time.

Working xdotool code:

xdotool keydown alt
sleep .1
xdotool key Tab key alt
PitaJ
  • 752
3

xte works too, if you use it like

"xte 'keydown Alt_L' 'key Tab' 'keyup Alt_L'"
  b:10
Parth
  • 141
  • 5
0

I came up with:

"xte 'keydown Alt_L' 'key Tab' 'sleep 1.5' 'keyup Alt_L'"   
  b:2

And off course, to install xte:

sudo apt-get install xautomation

Since I was looking to keep the switch window open to choose an application from the list myself, this was my final solution. Working pretty well so far.

Luis Vasconcellos
  • 101
  • 2
0

It works with PitaJ's method: Add the code below into .xbindkeysrc file(replace "user123" to your username and fix the xdotool_Alt_Tab.sh file path to your file path)

"/home/user123/xdotool_Alt_Tab.sh"
b:9

Note: made xdotool_Alt_Tab.sh executable by

 $ chmod +x xdotool_Alt_Tab.sh

or right click on that file -> Properties -> Click on the Permission tab -> Check the box of "Allow executing file as program"

I found I needed to press and release that mouse button pretty quick for the Tab key to catch up in time!

Sudo1234
  • 1
0

I use this approach to emulate a presenter console for presentation software that is missing said functionality.

This is my script:

#!/bin/sh

sleep .2
xdotool key --clearmodifiers Left
xdotool keydown --clearmodifiers alt
sleep .1
xdotool key Tab
xdotool keyup alt
sleep .2

xdotool key --clearmodifiers Left
sleep .1
xdotool keydown --clearmodifiers alt
sleep .2
xdotool key Tab
xdotool keyup alt

Create another one for the right arrow movement and assign them to shortcuts using xbindkey_config-gtk2 (gui for xbindkyes). Then simply have one window open with your slides and another with a pdf document of your notes on separate monitors. Use the assigned keybindings to move to the next slide in both of them with just a small delay.

joelostblom
  • 1,367