irxevent - Man Page

irxevent [option]... [config file]

Irxevent is a program to send button clicks and key presses to X applications triggered by a LIRC driven remote control. You can control your favorite CD/MP3 player, your TV tuner program or any other X application that responds to keyboard or mouse input. If you like to you can send emacs ^X^S from your armchair.

Irxevent is a complement to irexec(1) and irpty(1).

-d --daemon

Fork and run in background

-h --help

Display usage summary

-V --version

Display version

Irxevent works with the same config file as irexec and irpty (~/.config/lircrc). For a complete sample lircrc look at examples/lircrc.

Part of your .lircrc could look like this:

begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = VIDEO_UP
        config = Key SHIFT-KP_Add CurrentWindow
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = VIDEO_DOWN
        config = Key SHIFT-KP_Subtract CurrentWindow
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = STOP
        config = Key ctrl-c CurrentWindow
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = 0
        config = Key f xawtv
        config = Key f xawtv
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = POWER
        config = Key q xawtv
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = CH_DOWN
        config = Button 1 329 92 kscd
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = UP
        config = Button 1 110 80 GQmpeg
end
begin
        prog = irxevent
        button = DOWN
        config = Button 1 130 80 GQmpeg
end

Simply said config =  lines may look like this:

config = Key [shift-][ctrl-][alt-]<key> [Focus] <windowname>
        | WindowID <id> | CurrentWindow | RootWindow
config = Button <button> <x> <y> [Focus] <windowname> | WindowID <id>
        | CurrentWindow | RootWindow
config = xy_Key <x> <y> [shift-][ctrl-][alt-]<key> [Focus]
        <windowname> | WindowID id | CurrentWindow | RootWindow

Some more examples:

config = Key Up xawtv
config = Key Down xawtv
config = Button 1 50 110 xclickme
config = Key q xawtv
config = Key ctrl-c mpg123
config = Key shift-Page_Up rxvt

In BNF this looks like:

LINE    = "config =" <KEY|BUTTON|XYKEY> <TARGET> |
          "config =" <KEY|BUTTON|XYKEY> "Focus" <TARGET>
XYKEY   = "xy_Key" <x_position> <y_position> <MOD><KEYSPEC>
KEY     = "Key" <MOD><KEYSPEC>
MOD     = ["shift-"]["numlock-"]["ctrl-"]["alt-"]["meta-"]
          ["numlock-"]["mod3-"]["mod4-"]["mod5-"]["altgr-"]["scrlock-"]
KEYSPEC = Keyname | "KeySym:"KeySym | "KeyCode:"KeyCode
BUTTON  = "Button" <1..5> <x_position> <y_position>
TARGET  = Windowname | "WindowID" id | "CurrentWindow" | "RootWindow"

If you have problems finding the coordinates for a button click you can try xev -id <window_id>. The window_id can be found using xwininfo.

There are programs that do not accept any synthetic X-events by default because they can cause security problems. Currently xterm and xemacs are known to ignore events simulated by irxevent.

You can however make xterm accept external events by enabling "Allow SendEvents" in the "Main Options" (hold down the Ctrl button and press the left mouse button inside the xterm window). You can as well place this line into your .Xresources file to change this permanently:

Yet another possibility is to start xterm like this:

xemacs will accept events if you set a built-in variable. The following was taken from the online help:

If you have problems sending events please drop me an email.

Written by Heinrich Langos <heinrich@mad.scientist.com>.

xdotool(1)

invoked from irexec(1), xdotool provides a more flexible alternative to irxevent.

The documentation for lirc is maintained as html pages. They are located under html/ in the documentation directory.

lircrcd(8).