0ki / media_keypad

Turn your USB numpad into a full-fledged media keypad

media_keypad

Turn your USB numpad into a full-fledged media (or other custom) keypad.

Q: How is this better than multimedia keys I have on my out-of-the-box keyboard?

A: This method:

• is a separate sattelite controller
• has way more keys, e.g. adjustment of playback speed
• allows to control volume of each app (even the background ones) seperately
• allows for custom actions
• works even with computer locked
• is not seen as keyboard input by the OS, so does not disturb your use of other keyboard or mouse

Current this only supports unix systems with dbus and alsa. I don't think I'll be spending time porting this, but pull requests adding support for additional operating systems are welcome.

Installation

1. sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev (debian)
2. sudo apt-get install python3-evdev (debian)
3. python3 -m pip install pyalsaaudio
4. Copy 30-media-keypad.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d
5. Make sure that your user is in the group plugdev
6. Modify media_keypad.py according to your preferences, layout, apps
7. Add media_keypad.py to startup applications for your user session

What's where

experiments contain alternative ways that you may try to get this to work

icons contain icons that you can use to mod your keypad

kepad contain keypad svg with precise measurments (pull requests welcome)