Global shortcut keys for applications

[adf2000]

Hello, I'm trying some applications for the transcription of audio to text, some of them are specifically made for the purpose (Transcribe, Transcriber, PlayItSlowly) while the others are media players / editors like VLC and Audacity. I need to set some shortcut keys for them (play, pause, go back 5 seconds, etc.) that I can use when the focus is on another application, that is gedit, where I type the text, so that I won't have to switch between the player and the text editor each time. How can I achieve this? Thank you very much.

[shengchieh]

I would first consider making a bash script, i.e.,

/bin/sh
vlc [option]

and then have a shortcut key to the script.

I am not familiar with audition, but for vlc, you can get more info on a terminal typing

man vlc
vlc --help

Is "audition" the executable name for audition? if so try

man audition
audition --help

and see what you can find. If not, go to menulibre and figure out the executable name for audition.

For console command and bash script, see the links at

http://shengchieh.50webs.com/tuxslinks. ... 20Commands

Sheng-Chieh

[adf2000]

I would first consider making a bash script, i.e.,

Thank you for the idea Sheng-Chieh. By the way, I read that I can't achieve what I thought with XFCE:

(from http://wiki.xfce.org/faq )

How do I make a shortcut that doesn't steal focus?
You can't.

[adf2000]

Sorry, I meant Audacity, not Audition.

[adf2000]

Would it be more simple if I install the KDE desktop?

[shengchieh]

I cannot answer - haven't used KDE for (6-7 ?) years. All my machines need(ed) lightweight desktops or window manager. Someone else?

Sheng-Chieh

[adf2000]

I cannot answer - haven't used KDE for (6-7 ?) years.

By the way, I read some information about controlling a VLC process via command line and its RC interface, but it's too complicated for me.

[Flemur]

(play, pause, go back 5 seconds, etc.) that I can use when the focus is on another application, that is gedit, where I type the text, so that I won't have to switch between the player and the text editor each time.

You can sort-of do that with the mouse; middle-mouse-button-scroll moves the VLC position/playing-scrollbar when the mouse is over the inactive VLC window (with gedit on top of most of it); same with mouse rt-click (brings up menu with 'pause'). I think you can define how many seconds playing is moved with the middle-scroll. But you still have to move to mouse out of the gedit window. Dunno about audacity.

With fluxbox I can keep the gedit window "on top" of the VLC window, even when VLC is active, but don't have to, to do the above.

[adf2000]

As regards VLC it was easier than what I thought: there's a column with the title "Global" in the Preferences window > Hotkeys section, where the user can set a keyboard shortcut that works from any open application.