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I'm on Ubuntu 20, Firefox 84.0 (64-bit).

I've been trying to use xbindkeys and xdotool to create custom keyboard shortcuts for special characters like '→' or '«' (in brief, I hate compose key and ctrl+shift+u methods, I have always prefered windowish style shortcuts with alt key and I decided to achieve this on my own).

After a lot of time it works pretty well... Except for Firefox !

Say I want alt+1 to type '«'

Here is my .xbindkeysrc.scm (I use the guile config file rather than the standard .xbindkeysrc file because I have other more complex shortcuts dealing with mouse scroll for volume for example, but it really does the same thing):

(xbindkey '(alt KP_1) "xset r off; xdotool keyup --window 0 KP_1 key --clearmodifiers --window 0 U00AB; xset r on")

(See https://askubuntu.com/questions/455762/xbindkeys-wont-work-properly for more details on why xset r off and keyup parts)

This works perfectly fine on my terminal, on a gedit window, on a LibreOffice writer doc... Only Firefox won't type the right sign. Actually, it doesn't type any sign, after a short delay it acts as if I had only pressed the alt key, which shows the menu (File, Edit, ...) on the top of the Firefox window.

Any idea ? :)

EDIT

  • The problem is not specific to the use of alt key (which is already mapped to some shortcuts in Firefox): changing to control key doesn't change much (does nothing, instead of showing the menu like the alt key)

  • It is actually possible to send xdotool events to Firefox. I got Firefox window's id (here, 37749011), and then tried manually on the terminal: xdotool windowfocus --sync 37749011 key --clearmodifiers --window 0 U00AB which correctly typed '«'. But still does not work when I try keyboard shortcut

mrt
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  • Full code available here: https://github.com/mrtgenet/xbindkeys-guile-mouse-altkeys-and-more – mrt Dec 22 '20 at 19:04
  • +1. Same problem here. Some things work, such as "xdotool click 2" to middle-click. Others such as "xdotool key ctrl+Page_Down" don't work, but work in other non-Firefox windows such as Konsole. – kwantum Nov 06 '21 at 20:30

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