Openbox: keycodes and keybindings

Question

I've got a six year old very basic Logitech wireless keyboard with 8 hotkeys (inc volume). I've found the keycodes using showkey, but I can't get them to do anything. I'm trying to get keycode 172 (hexadecimal AC) to start Firefox, and keycode 156 (hex 9C) to start xterm, with the following code in my home/USERNAME/.config/openbox/rc.xml:
<!-- Keybindings for running applications -->
<keybind key="0xAC">
<action name="Execute">
<startupnotify>
<enabled>true</enabled>
<name>firefox</name>
<wmclass>Firefox</wmclass>
</startupnotify>
<command>firefox</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="0x9C">
<action name="Execute"><command>xterm</command></action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-e">
<action name="Execute">
<startupnotify>
<enabled>true</enabled>
<name>Konqueror</name>
</startupnotify>
<command>kfmclient openProfile filemanagement</command>
</action>
</keybind>
<!-- Other keybindings -->
<keybind key="C-Escape">
<action name="Exit">
</action>
</keybind>
My Other keybinding C-Escape to exit openbox works fine, but why not the hotkeys?
Last edited by dameunmate (2010-07-16 14:06:26)

Answer 1

I just tried that but it didn't work. Uninstalled and deleted xbindkeys.
But a small change to home/USERNAME/.config/openbox/rc.xml does work, the following code starts firefox when I press the key with keycode 172:
<keybind key="XF86HomePage">
<action name="Execute">
<execute>firefox</execute>
</action>
</keybind>
Why is is that <keybind key="XF86HomePage"> does work but <keybind key="0xAC"> does not work? 0xAC = 172 in decimal = the correct keycode for the XF86HomePage button, so why doesn't that work? It should work in Openbox, see http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Bindings#Key_combination: "Keys can also be specified by their numeric codes. This can be done by specifying the keycode in hex." I have another keyboard with loads of extra keys so I need to be able to use keycodes in rc.xml
Last edited by dameunmate (2010-07-16 14:05:01)