funckey

funckey is a simple go cli program that wraps lower level linux cli apps that are commonly mapped to function keys on laptops.

I made this so I could easily map my volume and brightness function keys on my laptop to work when running xmonad and xmobar (see config examples below). If you're using gnome/kde you probably don't need something like this.

Setup / Install

go get github.com/jacktasia/funckey then go install github.com/jacktasia/funckey

required packages

Ensure you have pactl installed

and

that the /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness file exists.

brightness file permissions

By default the brightness file is owned by root.

Your user needs to be able to edit the brightness file, change jack to your username:

sudo chown jack:jack /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

This will change the permissions for just this boot. To change the permissions going forward do this:

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/90-myrules.rules and add a line with:

Again, make sure you update your username here (replace jack) too.

KERNEL=="intel_backlight", SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", RUN+="/usr/bin/find /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/ -type f -name brightness -exec chown jack:jack {} ; -exec chmod 666 {} ;"

Commands

Controlling Volume

• funckey volume down Decrease system volume by ~10%
• funckey volume up Increase system volume by ~10%
• funckey volume toggle-mute Toggle the mute volume
• funckey volume mute Mute system volume
• funckey volume unmute Un-mute system volume
• funckey volume get-percent Get the system volume
• funckey volume set-percent N Set the system volume by percent

Controlling Brightness

• funckey brightness down Decrease screen brightness by ~10%
• funckey brightness up Increase screen brightness by ~10%
• funckey brightness get-percent Get the screen brightness
• funckey brightness set-percent N Set the screen brightness by percent
• funckey brightness status Set the screen brightness status

xmonad keybindings

A snippet of my xmonad.hs config using import XMonad.Util.EZConfig:

  ("<XF86MonBrightnessDown>", spawn "funckey brightness down"),
  ("<XF86MonBrightnessUp>", spawn "funckey brightness up"),
  ("<XF86AudioLowerVolume>", spawn "funckey volume down"),
  ("<XF86AudioRaiseVolume>", spawn "funckey volume up"),
  ("<XF86AudioMute>", spawn "funckey volume toggle-mute")

xmobar config

In the commands section of the config:

        , Run Com "funckey" ["brightness", "get-percent"] "mybrightness" 2
        , Run Com "funckey" ["volume", "get-percent"] "myvolume" 2

then in the template you can have something like:

| Screen: %mybrightness% | Vol: %myvolume%