Where the Settings Live

Documentation / Contents - Menu & Shortcuts

• Overview of Menu & Shortcuts
  • Two Pages, Two Files
  • Who Is In Charge
• Editing the Desktop Menu
  • Reading the Tree
  • Changing a Label or a Command
  • Adding Items, Submenus and Separators
  • Deleting and Reordering
  • Reload File
• Editing Shortcuts
  • The Action List
  • The Inspector
• Setting a Shortcut
  • Arming the Capture
  • When a Chord Is Already Taken
  • Clear and Reset Default
  • Reset All Defaults
• The Action Catalog
  • Window
  • Desktop
  • Tiling
  • Session
  • Launchers
• Where the Settings Live
  • The Shortcuts File
  • The Menu File
  • The Legacy Keys File
• The Status Line
• Keys and Shortcuts in the Editor
• Copyright Information

Where the Settings Live

Menu & Shortcuts edits two plain text files in your home directory. Both are readable and editable by hand, and both are re-read by the window manager without a restart.

~/.cyanotype/keys.conf   the session shortcuts
~/.cyanotype/menu        the desktop menu
~/.cyanotype/keys        an older shortcuts file, still read

The Shortcuts File

One line per binding: the technical id, whitespace, the chord.

# Cyanotype hotkeys -- edited by cykeys; governed by cywm
window.maximize    Alt+F10
desk.next          Control+Alt+Right
session.osk        Control+Alt+k
exec.xterm         Ctrl+Alt+x  xterm -ls
exec.cystar        Ctrl+Alt+s  cystar

Lines beginning with "#" are comments. The chord is modifier-first, joined with "+"; an unbound action is written "None" or "-". A launcher id, one beginning with "exec.", carries the shell command after the chord.

Any action not named in the file keeps its stock chord, so a short file is perfectly normal. The full list of ids is in The Action Catalog.

Set CYKEYS_CONF in your environment to use a different file.

The Menu File

The menu file uses the same grammar the window manager reads, a subset of the well-known Fluxbox menu format:

[begin] (Elrond's Desktop)
  [exec] (Terminal) {xterm -ls}
  [submenu] (Tools)
    [exec] (File Manager) {cyfiler}
  [end]
  [separator]
  [nop] (Nothing here yet)
[end]

[begin]        opens the menu
[submenu]      opens a nested menu; needs its own end
[exec]         a command: (label) then {command}
[separator]    a horizontal rule
[nop]          a label that does nothing when picked
[end]          closes the enclosing menu or submenu

Set CYMENU_CONF in your environment to use a different file.

The Legacy Keys File

The older ~/.cyanotype/keys file is still read, after keys.conf. It held launcher lines from before there was a keys.conf, and its entries appear in the Shortcuts list as exec.legacy.1, exec.legacy.2 and so on.

If the same chord appears in both files, keys.conf wins.

When There Is No File At All

• No shortcuts file: every action uses its stock chord. The desktop works out of the box; the file only records your departures from stock.
• No menu file: a small stock menu with a terminal, restart and quit.

Telling the Window Manager to Re-read Them

The editor does this for you on every save. If you edit either file by hand, run:

cykeys --notify

That sends the reload messages and exits; no window is opened. Add "=keys" or "=menu" to send only one of them.