Keyboard Shortcuts (audio)

[arfink]

Hi there, I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I think that it is:

I have been trying to set up some keyboard shortcuts on Linux Mint 13 MATE edition, 64 bit. I am trying to set up some keyboard shortcuts using the GUI interface that looks like this:



Setting up keyboard shortcuts for doing things like switching desktops back and forth (Alt+Control+keypad left for example) works just fine. Setting up audio related shortcuts hasn't been working though. None of them do anything, in either Banshee or Rhythmbox. What can I do to fix this?

[xenopeek]

Moved here by moderator

Might be that your keyboard's audio keys are not detected? You may test if they fire keyboard events with xinput, as here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=94341#p540988

[arfink]

I have not been attempting to use my keyboard's built-in audio function buttons, as my keyboard has none. I am attenpting to use my normal function keys as audio shortcuts.

[xenopeek]

That is not what the screenshot shows. To what have you changed the shortcuts on the volume actions?

[arfink]

I don't need to remap everything, I just want "Next Track" and "Previous Track" mapped to F9 and F10 respectively. You can see that in the screenshot. Perhaps I should have been more specific.

Interestingly enough, the dialog will register me pressing any key or key combination I have thought of, so the thread you linked to wouldn't really be helpful, since it's clear the dialog is picking up the keypresses. I think this may be another issue.

[arfink]

Oh, and interestingly enough, I did try remapping the volume and mute keys just to see what would happen. Those ones worked just fine, and I was able to change the volume and mute/unmute with my F9 and F10 keys, but track changes still stubbornly refused to work in any media app I have tried. I have also now tried Totem and VLC.

[xenopeek]

I'm not sure what is wrong. I tried to set F9 and F10 to track control, then Alt+9 and Alt+0 just to try that. Both don't work with Banshee when playing an album, but the Banshee window does flash/pulse when you press those keys. Like it is receiving them but somehow then ignores them. I think this is a MATE bug, but not sure...

[arfink]

I'm not sure what is wrong. I tried to set F9 and F10 to track control, then Alt+9 and Alt+0 just to try that. Both don't work with Banshee when playing an album, but the Banshee window does flash/pulse when you press those keys. Like it is receiving them but somehow then ignores them. I think this is a MATE bug, but not sure...

Drat.

[arfink]

Is there a potential fix for this?

[xenopeek]

It may be that Banshee doesn't support these audio keys (next/previous track), because it has its own shortcuts: http://banshee.fm/support/guide/keyboard-shortcuts/

[arfink]

Well, I can try that with Banshee, but Rythmbox supports those shorcuts in vanilla Ubuntu and when I installed Rhythmbox on Mint it wasn't recognizing the keypresses. Totem is also supposed to recognize those shortcuts, and it hasn't been either. Perhaps I'll try another approach next.

[arfink]

Still borken.

And this is really the only bug I have encountered in Mint that's really bothered me. Everything else has just worked.

[shrank]

Hi there

I just ran into the same issue after I had to give up my Ubunto 10.04 and switched to Mint. The workaround for Banshee is to create new shortcuts using the banshee cli commands:

banshee --toggle-playing
banshee --next
banshee --previous

You can get the full list of commands here:

bashee --help-playback

The shortcuts have a bit more delay than the direct shortcuts on my old Ubuntu.

[xenopeek]

What I've found since switching to Linux Mint 13 MATE as my primary installation, is that the multimedia keys (next/previous track for example) don't work because of some namespace changes between GNOME 2 and MATE. That is apparently being worked on, and in the mean time a user here has created a small script you can add to your system to make the multimedia keys work for common music players again: viewtopic.php?f=47&t=102626#p586479

Perhaps that post will be enough detail for you, but I'll detail it some more. To be clear, this is for MATE only. I've switched to the awesome Quod Libet instead of using Banshee or Rhythmbox (it's ten times as awesome, and ten times as lightweight ), so I'll detail it for that but probably Banshee will work similar.

1. Download the attached file and extract the mmkeys-mate2mpris2.py file it contains to somewhere in your home folder.

mmkeys-mate2mpris2.py.tar.gz

(862 Bytes) Downloaded 327 times

2. From your Mint Menu open the Startup Applications program. Add a new entry. Give it a descriptive name, for example Multimedia Keys. The command to run is the full path to this mmkeys-mate2mpris2.py file you extracted somewhere in your home folder, followed by a space followed by an ampersand. Let's says you are me, and you just put this file in your Documents folder, then the command would be:

Code: Select all

/home/vincent/Documents/mmkeys-mate2mpris2.py &

3. Log out and log in again, or reboot your computer and this script will be running.

4. Finally, configure your music player to use MPRIS D-Bus. The multimedia key events will be passed from this script to your music player through MPRIS D-Bus. I'm not sure how to do that on Banshee, but for Quod Libet you'd go to Music > Plugins and put a mark next to "MPRIS D-Bus support". For Quod Libet that's all there is to it, your multimedia keys will now work.

[agarbato]

Same here, sounds shortcuts not working, all else seems to work properly.
As a workaround I put some custom keybinds, you won't see any screen notification but it works.

Create follow shortcuts (give them name you like, it doesn't really matter)
Then save and assign a key you like.

Name : alsa++
Command : amixer sset Master,0 5+

Name : alsa--
Command : amixer sset Master,0 5-

Name : amute
Command : amixer sset Master,0 toggle

Enjoy

[inyriljace]

@Vincent Vermeulen,

I tried doing what you said but the multimedia keys still don't work. Maybe it's because I use Rhythmbox and Banshee, not Quod Libet. Also, when I searched for MPRIS D-Bus support, I didn't find it. All I found was MPRIS D-Bus interface. I'm assuming it would be a different thing to the support and would make a difference. Any advice as to what to do now?

[xenopeek]

It should work for Rhythmbox and Banshee as well, after enabling MPRIS D-Bus "whatever it is called" on them. It's not specific to Quod Libet.