I want to record all incoming keypress events, no matter which window is in focus or where the pointer is. I have written sample code which should capture the key pressed events of the current window in focus (see below). To keep my code readable, I have given the sample code only for the window in focus. As my final aim is to capture key press events on the screen irrespective of the Window in focus, I plan to use XQueryTree
to get all the Windows and apply the same logic.
I am calling XGrabKeyboard
to capture the keyboard, as the window in focus might already be grabbing the keyboard events. With my sample code, I am able to grab the keyboard, but cannot receive KeyPress
or KeyRelease
events for any keyboard keys inside the while
loop.
What am I missing in the code to allow me to receive the events?
Sample Code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <locale.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdarg.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <pthread.h>
#include <X11/Xlib.h>
#include <X11/Xos.h>
#include <X11/Xfuncs.h>
#include <X11/Xutil.h>
#include <X11/Xatom.h>
int _invalid_window_handler(Display *dsp, XErrorEvent *err) {
return 0;
}
int main()
{
Display *display = XOpenDisplay(NULL);
int iError;
KeySym k;
int revert_to;
Window window;
XEvent event;
Time time;
XSetErrorHandler(_invalid_window_handler);
XGetInputFocus(display, &window, &revert_to);
XSelectInput(display, window, KeyPressMask | KeyReleaseMask );
iError = XGrabKeyboard(display, window,
KeyPressMask | KeyReleaseMask,
GrabModeAsync,
GrabModeAsync,
CurrentTime);
if (iError != GrabSuccess && iError == AlreadyGrabbed) {
XUngrabPointer(display, CurrentTime);
XFlush(display);
printf("Already Grabbed\n");
} else if (iError == GrabSuccess) {
printf("Grabbed\n");
}
while(1) {
XNextEvent(display,&event);
switch (event.type) {
case KeyPress : printf("Key Pressed\n"); break;
case KeyRelease : printf("Key Released\n"); break;
case EnterNotify : printf("Enter\n"); break;
}
}
XCloseDisplay(display);
return 0;
}