XCAPE(1)

💖 XCAPE 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the xcape manual page (section 1 of the xcape Manual, if we're being official about it) 🌸

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✨ NAME ✨

xcape — use a modifier key as another key 👑

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

xcape [-d] [-t timeout] [-e map-expression]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so here's the tea 🍓: xcape lets a modifier key do a whole other job when you press it and let it go all by itself. like, tapped solo, no other key invited to the party.

the default behaviour? genuinely iconic: it generates the Escape key instead of Control_L (that's Left Control, the one on the left, yes).

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -d — Debug mode 🐛. it will run as a foreground process, so it's right there in your terminal being loud and proud.
• -t timeout — give a timeout in milliseconds ⏱️. if you hold a key longer than timeout, a key event will not be generated. so hold it too long and, nope, nothing, sorry babe.
• -e map-expression — use map-expression as the expression(s) 💫.

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🦋 EXPRESSION SYNTAX 🦋

the expression syntax is ´ModKey=Key[|OtherKey]´ — yes, that's the shape of it, that's the vibe ✨

you can pass multiple expressions, and you delimit them with semi-colons (;). stack 'em up, bestie.

a whole list of keysyms lives in the header file <X11/keysymdef.h> — and psst, you drop the XK_ prefix when you use them 🫶

⚠️ important caveat, do not skip this: shifted keys have to be specified as a shift key followed by the key to be pressed, not the actual name of the character. so if you wanna generate {, you'd use the expression ´ModKey=Shift_L|bracketleft´ — that's assuming you've got a key with ´{´ sitting above ´[´, iykyk 😌

you can also specify ModKey in decimal (prefix #), octal (#0), or hexadecimal (#0x) 🔢. it'll be interpreted as a keycode unless no corresponding key name is found. that last bit matters, fr fr.

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

make Left Shift pop off as Escape, and Left Control do a Ctrl-O combo

make Left Shift generate Escape when it's pressed and released on its own, and make Left Control generate a Ctrl-O combination when it's pressed and released on its own 🎉

xcape -e 'Shift_L=Escape;Control_L=Control_L|O'

the xmodmap collab 🤝

in conjugation with xmodmap it is possible to make an ordinary key act as an extra modifier. the move is: first map the key to the modifier with xmodmap, and then map the modifier back to the key with xcape 🔁

as an example, we can make the space bar work as an additional ctrl key when held, with the following sequence of commands 👇

step one: give the modifier a home

first, map an unused modifier's keysym to the spacebar's keycode, and make it a control modifier. it needs to be an existing key so that emacs won't spazz out when you press it 😭. Hyper_L is a good candidate 💜

spare_modifier="Hyper_L"
xmodmap -e "keycode 65 = $spare_modifier"
xmodmap -e "remove mod4 = $spare_modifier"
# hyper_l is mod4 by default
xmodmap -e "add Control = $spare_modifier"

step two: stash space somewhere safe

next, map space to an unused keycode — this is so it's kept around for xcape to use 🧚

xmodmap -e "keycode any = space"

step three: the actual xcape moment ✨

finally, use xcape to cause the space bar to generate a space when tapped 🫶

xcape -e "$spare_modifier=space"

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

xmodmap(1), xev(1)

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

xcape was written by Albin Olsson (albin dot olsson at gmail dot com) 💌

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and that's a wrap, bestie 💖 this page came from John Hill, dated 2014-02-13, for XCAPE(1) — periodt. 🎀🦋