QXIKeyWatcher
Overview
QXIKeyWatcher is a library that allows Qt applications to subscribe to key presses. QXIKeyWatcher uses XInput to listen for keypresses, and then sends a Qt signal when user-specified keypresses are activated. Key differences between this and QKeyPress:
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QXIKeyWatcher listens to all keypresses that are entered, not just presses for a specific window.
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QXIKeyWatcher does not grab keys or key combinations. Applications work the same with or without QXIKeyWatcher listening.
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QKeyPress is cross-platform, whereas this expects the user to have X11 as the display server (usually Linux). I don't know if this works on Wayland, but I also have no interest in Wayland.
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This can only track keypresses. It does not track modifiers as well.
Also, it should be noted that QXIKeyWatcher uses a QThread under the hood to listen for X events. It will not block the main thread.
Usage
Create a QXIKeyWatcher, then provide textual names of keysyms for it to watch. Once ready, use start to begin the thread. Because this can be used as a keylogger, I have not included a demo or examples.
Credit
Key watching code comes from xkbcat. All I did was wrap that code to allow Qt to understand it.
Why
I created this to add simple global hotkeys to future applications of mine.
Miscellaneous
Keysyms are defined in X11/keysymdefs.h, which is probably in /usr/include/
but may be somewhere else. Anything in that file can be used, simply remove the
XK_ prefix.