HP Pavilion multimedia buttons configuration under Linux

How to setup the HP QuickPlay Linux equivalent: Elisa Media Center

In this howto you’ll learn how to customize the applications associated to the sensitive buttons above the keyboard of HP Pavilion laptops. This way you would be able to run Elisa Media Center (HP QuickPlay Linux equivalent) simply touching the QuickPlay button.

1. simple method

You can simply customize these touch sensitive buttons for most common functions through the Gnome applet under System -> Preferences -> Keyboard shortcuts

2. advanced method

The first step is finding out the button keycode in order to be able to bind an event to it: on the terminal shell you have to run this applet (if not available it should be installed through x11-utils package with synaptic package manager or sudo apt-get install x11-utils)

xev

now push/touch the desired button

You should get an output similar to the following one:

For every pressed button you’ll get two events, one for the push event, one for the release event.

Just for your information Quickplay button has keycode 170 (dv6000 series) 205 (dv9000 series), DVD button has keycode 219 (dv6000 series) 237 (dv9000 series)

Now we have to bind a name to the keycode. Just create in your own home directory a file called .Xmodmap (notice the initial dot and the capital X):

keycode 219 = F13
keycode … = F14
keycode … = firefox

At every line you are going to write the keycode (keycode 219) associated with (=) the name (F13); you can choose whatever name you like, however it is far easier to choose one betweenn F13 and F24. Otherwise you’ll have to define the new buttons in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/XKeysymDB by writing at the end of the file something like this:

firefox :10090000

which is the name we choose followed by a colon and an exadecimal number not used in any other line of the file.

At this point we hav eto run:

xmodmap .Xmodmap

and again run xev. If you have done things well you’ll see and output similar to this one:

.Xmodmap is going to be run at each Xorg startup.

Now you have to associate an application to your newly configured button.

I advise you to associate Elisa media center to the QuickPlay button. It is a very good alternative to HP QuickPlay for linux systems. You can install Elisa by running sudo apt-get install elisa . The command to run this media center is, guess what, elisa

You can read a more comprehensive guide about Elisa Media center here

There are 3 ways to bind a program to a button or combination of buttons according to what window manager you are using

A) Gnome Metacity (no desktop effects enabled)

1. ALT+F2
2. gconf-editor
3. go to apps -> metacity -> keybinding_commands
4. doubleclick on command_1
5. fill the area with the application name (the one you type in to execute it) i.e. gcalctool for GNOME calculator
6. go to apps -> metacity -> global_keybindings
7. doubleclick on run_command_1
8. set the button (or key combination) you want to bind to the program i.e. F13 or <Control><Alt>C
9. Note the parenthesis < > for the funcion button
10. you can set up all the shortcuts you want with strings command_N and run_command_N
11. done!

B) Gnome Compiz (desktop effects enabled)

same as above, only keys change:

apps -> compiz -> general -> allscreens -> options

string names are command0 (for the application command) and run_command0_key (for the button name or key combination).

C) KDE

run kmenuedit, select the desired program on the left menu and then on the right click to Nothing under section Currnet Key. As soon as a window opens press/touch the button you want to bind to. Done.

You can also manually modify the config file

~/.kde/config/khotkeyrc

Here is an example

[Main]
Num_Sections=2
Version=1

[Section1]
MenuEntry=true
Name=K Menu - Networking/WWW/Mozilla.desktop
Run=Networking/WWW/Mozilla.desktop
Shortcut=Mozilla

[Section2]
MenuEntry=true
Name=K Menu - Home.desktop
Run=Home.desktop
Shortcut=F13