Push-To-Talk using global hotkey in X11, muting/unmuting an alsa mixer recording control. Unmutes the microphone when you press the configured hotkey (by default Hyper_L + Shift_R) and mutes it back when you release it. It also monitors the muting state and fixes it in case it changes unexpectedly, for example when plugging a headset into your laptop and the headset mute status happens to be wrong.
It has been tested to be working well together with PipeWire / PulseAudio at least in Fedora 34, since PipeWire is configured to expose a "PipeWire" alsa device that just does the right thing. Also seems to work on Devuan 3 with PulseAudio.
- Install Rust
- Install alsa & xcb development packages
alsa-lib-develandlibxcb-develfor Fedora-based distributionslibasound2-devandlibxcb-devfor Debian-based distributions
- Clone this repo
- In the cloned repo, run
cargo compile --release
Adjust the hardcoded settings in the constants in src/main.rs to your liking:
const DEVICE: &str = "default";
const CONTROL: &str = "Capture";
const UNMUTE_DELAY_MS: u64 = 150;
const HOTKEY_MODIFIERS: ModMask = ModMask::N3; // Hyper_L in my setup
const HOTKEY_KEYCODE: Keycode = 62; // Shift_R- The
CONTROLvalues can be found out usingamixer scontrols -D defaultwheredefaultis the alsa device name specified in DEVICE:
$ amixer scontrols -D default
Simple mixer control 'Master',0
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
- The
UNMUTE_DELAY_MSis to silence a possible sound created by clicking the hotkey.. but not too much to not mute yourself when you start talking. Unfortunately it is not possible to do the same when releasing the key to mute yourself, so you'll have to be careful not to release it too loudly :) - For
HOTKEY_MODIFIERS, see ModMask enum values here and your modifier mappings using thexmodmapcommand:
$ xmodmap
xmodmap: up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):
shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e)
lock
control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69), Control_L (0x85), Control_R (0x87)
mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_L (0xcc)
mod2 Mode_switch (0x6c), Mode_switch (0x86), Mode_switch (0xcb)
mod3 Hyper_L (0x42), Hyper_L (0xcf)
mod4
mod5
➔ since I want to use Hyper_L as modifier, I thus need to use mod3 which represented by ModMask::N3. You can combine multiple modifiers with the | operator like ModMask::CONTROL | ModMask::SHIFT. To just use a single dedicated hotkey without modifiers, use ModMask::empty().
- For
HOTKEY_KEYCODE, see keycodes from e.g.xevoutput
$ xev -event keyboard
KeyPress event, serial 28, synthetic NO, window 0x6400001,
root 0x7cf, subw 0x0, time 58544270, (115,90), root:(1050,594),
state 0x0, keycode 62 (keysym 0xffe2, Shift_R), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False
➔ the "keycode 62" part is the interesting one for the HOTKEY_KEYCODE
In the cloned repo, run:
$ cargo run --release