this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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Linux Gaming

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What do you use for key rebinding in games? (self.linux_gaming)
submitted 8 months ago by CarbonatedPastaSauce to c/linux_gaming
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I've just switched over from Windows to Linux for my daily driver in the last few weeks, and after the initial learning curves everything seems pretty solid. The only thing I really, really need for some games is the ability to rebind keys that the game itself doesn't allow. Examples would be Orcs Must Die 1 (no rebinding at all) or Dyson Sphere Program (my current issue) which has the E key hardcoded. I use ESDF for movement so I have to rebind pretty much every game.

I had tons of AutoHotKey scripts in Windows but I haven't found anything comparable in Linux. What do you guys use? I've looked at AHK_X11 but every post I saw about it says it doesn't work. I tried Autokey but found it clunky and it didn't work properly in-game (micro-pauses between key repeats).

Really just looking for something that can easily rebind a few keys just for a game session. I know I'm going to have to learn xdotool and python for mouse stuff, that's on my to-do list. :) But the vast majority of my games just need rebinding a few keys. Throw your wisdom at me. Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I've found an app called keyd to be super useful for remapping keys to other keys. it doesn't map keys to scripts though.

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce 2 points 8 months ago

That looks perfect, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've never used it, but Espanso is a popular open-source alternative for AutoHotKey. Maybe that can work?

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce 1 points 8 months ago

That looks similar to the other one I tried, so I don’t think it will work. The problem comes into play when holding down a key - the text expanders generally won’t repeat the key properly to work in the game for continuous movement.

Looks like a cool tool though and I’m going to check it out for other uses! Thanks!

[–] CarlosCheddar 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mostly play with the Steam Controller so I rely on Steam Input which works quite well but only if you’re playing on Steam.

[–] topinambour_rex 4 points 8 months ago

Good thing we can add no steam games to steam. That's how I could have played Control(GOG) with full support for my controler.

[–] monstoor 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I use ESDF for movement

Yikes! However, back in the day I remember using zx*? for movement on the BBC Micro :-)

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I switched from arrow keys to ESDF going from Doom to Quake. WASD wasn't the 'default' yet back then. And by the time it got annoying with new games coming out, muscle memory was already there. If I could go back in time and do that over, it would save me at least several days of my life rebinding stuff over the years, lol.

[–] Brewchin 1 points 4 months ago

It's a net positive, not a negative: using ESDF means you have a bunch of keys available to the left of your movement keys.

Sure, it can be a pain if a game forces WASD, but otherwise you're not the person having to lift your hand off the movement keys (or buying an MMO mouse) to have the same flexibility. 😄

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Look into xmodmap.

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce 2 points 8 months ago

xmodmap

I like this, it's very easy to understand the config file. I would like application specific mappings so I'm going to try keyd first, but I'll keep this in my back pocket. Thanks!

[–] CarbonatedPastaSauce 1 points 8 months ago

It never occurred to me to see if Steam could do this remapping without using a controller. I’ll have to investigate! Good tip, thanks.