X11 Turns 25 Years Old Today

[RealNC]

Some X11 programs actually read directly from the /dev/input/ devices to do global shortcuts anyway. "Mumble" for example.

[mark45]

I do not think the word "global" means what you think it means.

Allow me to restate. Wayland does not appear to support X11 hotkeys. We shouldn't refer to X11 hotkeys as "global", since they're not really "global". I guess you could say that they're "global" to X11 applications. I fully expect things like Alt-Tab will still work under Wayland, through the Wayland or WM hotkeys.

"Hotkeys" will work just fine without X11, just like they do under NT, OSX, Linux, and any other X11-less stack.

F

I do not think you understand what I mean.
Allow me to restate.

Alt-Tab usage insider Wayland and global keys events exposed to external (not Wayland itself) apps are two different cases, one doesn't necessarily mean the other.

Also, I'm asking about a usable solution, not fringe solutions, not recompiling the kernel or directly reading the keyboard device or so, no nonsense.
E.g. a portable way across all X11 based distros is using XGrabKeys and the generic string "XF86AudioPlay" for the "play" key, can you provide working portable code across Wayland based distros and across keyboards? Show me the code (the solution, as I said earlier, must be based upon software installed by default, you just use the API that it provides).

[curaga]

The "installed by default" argument is nonsense, because of course no popular distro will expect you to want your volume hotkeys to work without X. So they install by default something that handles them inside X.

actkbd is hardly a fringe solution comparable to writing your custom kernel modules. It's a portable linux daemon that reads the keyboard events from /dev. If you insist on writing your own daemon, that's the portable way to do so. It will work in X, console, wayland, or even no display at all but still a keyboard attached

[mark45]

The "installed by default" argument is nonsense, because of course no popular distro will expect you to want your volume hotkeys to work without X. So they install by default something that handles them inside X.

Nonsense is how you redefine my words. If actkbd isn't installed by default I don't care about using it, get it? If still not, please take a hike. I want to base my app on dependencies that are installed by default, which is X11 or Wayland.

[garegin]

i love that the 800 pound gorilla is not discussed. the ability for windows or osx (maybe, im not sure) to survive a driver crash and preserve the apps. modern toolkits have this ability but no-one uses them. this makes the linux desktop an utter joke for the normal user because X.org crashes close all the apps and disrupts the work. and you can't lie to me that they don't happen often because they do. canonical is too cheap to do regression testing so you are probably gonna get at least a few x.org crashes a year.
i'm sure x11 cranks cannot weasel out of this out easily.

[KellyClowers]

...survive a driver crash and preserve the apps...

What, a graphics driver crash (and graphical apps)? Nope, I can assure you that that does not happen. Windows certainly does not.

[KellyClowers]

>Your a relic, dude.
No, actually I am not.

>We must move forward no matter
There is a difference between progress and pointless bullshit that removes useful features.

>how much old folks like you want to remain in the past for nostalgic reasons.
Not for nostalgic reasons. And I am all for improvements. I am pro-PulseAudio, and cautiously pro-Systemd, for example.
Also, not old. I am 30, and I never used Linux (or any *nix) till 1999. Hardly an oldtimer.

[RealNC]

What, a graphics driver crash (and graphical apps)? Nope, I can assure you that that does not happen.

How exactly can you "assure" it? And note that a driver crash in Linux means a kernel panic or at least an X server crash.

[KellyClowers]

>How exactly can you "assure" it?
*boggle* Have you seen a Windows graphics driver crash?! It is a BSoD. Apps don't survive that.

>And note that a driver crash in Linux means a kernel panic or at least an X server crash.
No shit. Happens to mean a kernel panic in Windows as well!

[russofris]

I do not think you understand what I mean.
Allow me to restate.

Alt-Tab usage insider Wayland and global keys events exposed to external (not Wayland itself) apps are two different cases, one doesn't necessarily mean the other.

I don't understand. X11 hotkeys are for applications running under X11. Windows hotkeys are for applications running under Windows. Wayland hotkeys will be for applications running under Wayland.

So we are on the same page, can you name an application for which you would use an X11 hotkey, and what X11 hotkey you would be using?

Hitting "Play/Pause/Stop/Next" on an MM keyboard will likely work fine under Wayland in media applications prior to 1.0. I cannot imagine it being overlooked.

F