How to remap (only) mouse keys? (special case)

canerandagio

5/28/24, 11:58 AM

I've remapped some mouse keys to help me navigate in firefox, later I'll extend the use to other applications.

In particular, I remapped button 4 of the mouse so that the active web page scrolls up at the beginning, i.e. what happens by pressing the 'Home' key on the keyboard.

The problem is that now if I press button 4 on my keyboard the same thing happens as if I press button 4 on my mouse, ie it's like pressing 'Home.' This doesn't happen with the numeric keypad.

For example, if I'm in a text box and I want to type the number '4' to write '44 cats in a row with the remainder of 2', as soon as I press 4, the cursor returns to the beginning of the line.

I don't understand why, mouse button 4 is the same character 4 of the keyboard, and xev confirms it for me:

mouse key 4 button:

KeyPress event, serial 49, synthetic NO, window 0x4200001,
root 0x78a, subw 0x0, time 2402842, (93,102), root:(964,583),
state 0x10, keycode 13 (keysym 0x34, 4), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (34) "4"
XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (34) "4"
XFilterEvent returns: False

keyboard key 4 button:

KeyRelease event, serial 40, synthetic NO, window 0x3200001,
root 0x78a, subw 0x0, time 11553777, (170,-9), root:(1041,472),
state 0x10, keycode 13 (keysym 0x34, 4), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (34) "4"
XFilterEvent returns: False

Below is the xbindkeys configuration code and the script to scrool up the page to the top:

;; mouse #4
(xbindkey '("c:13") "/home/andrea/programmazione/bash-scripts/script-mouse-binding-scroll-up.sh")
;; mouse #7
(xbindkey '("c:16") "/home/andrea/programmazione/bash-scripts/script-mouse-binding-scroll-down.sh")
;; mouse #6
(xbindkey '("c:15") "/home/andrea/programmazione/bash-scripts/script-mouse-key6-binding.sh")

Basically all additional mouse keys 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 are assigned to their respective numbers.

So now my question is intuitive, how do I avoid this behavior? I thought about changing the mouse button mapping from source, i.e. not assigning it the character '4', but I don't know where to start.

Thank you

1 + 0

mouse

remapping

xbindkeys

Score:0

Ubuntu

canerandagio

6/7/24, 5:49 PM

I solved it using the xkb utility, in fact xkb remaps the keys even for just one device, in my case the mouse keyboard.
Yes basically I found out that the mouse numpads are actually a mini keyboard. This explains the behavior described above.

This below is the script I used to remap the mouse keyboard keys.

#!/bin/bash
remote_id=18 #device code

mkdir -p /tmp/xkb/symbols
cat >/tmp/xkb/symbols/custom <<\EOF

xkb_symbols "remote" {
    key <AE04> { [ Home ] }; #Keycodes, see the link below
    key <AE07> { [ End ] };
    key <AE05> { [ Prior ] };
    key <AE08> { [ Next ] };
};
EOF

setxkbmap -device $remote_id -print \
 | sed 's/\(xkb_symbols.*\)"/\1+custom(remote)"/' \
 | xkbcomp -I/tmp/xkb -i $remote_id -synch - $DISPLAY 2>/dev/null

I located the device code via xinput list from terminal.

Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SOAI USB Gaming Mouse                     id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SOAI USB Gaming Mouse Keyboard            id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN0709:00 04F3:30A0 Mouse               id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN0709:00 04F3:30A0 Touchpad            id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HP TrueVision HD Camera: HP Tru           id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID events                          id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Intel HID 5 button array                  id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=16   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HP WMI hotkeys                            id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ SOAI USB Gaming Mouse Keyboard            id=18   [slave  keyboard (3)]

To know the codes related to the keys I used xbindkeys --key from the terminal.

"(Scheme function)"
m:0x10 + c:13
Mod2 + Home

To find out which code of the system corresponds to the code of the key on the mouse keyboard, I have viewed this link.
Instead, to find out the codes of the keys I wanted to assign, I followed the same link but in this section

key <AE04> { [ Home ] }; #Keycodes

On every reboot of the system I run this script

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I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How to remap (only) mouse keys? (special case)

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