9 Keystrokes

Interactive control of ratpoison is done entirely through keystrokes. This chapter explains how keystrokes are stored and manipulated.

ratpoison uses the Emacs style key notation. A combination of modifiers and one non-modifier key combine to invoke an action. The syntax is one or more modifiers seperated with dashes followed by a dash and the non-modifier key name. For instance, holding down control, shift, and super then pressing the spacebar would be described as:

     S-C-s-space

The following is a list of modifiers ratpoison accepts:

S

Shift modifier

C

Control modifier

M

Meta modifier

A

Alt modifier

H

Hyper modifier

s

Super modifier

ratpoison uses the X11 keysym names for keys. Alphanumeric key names are exactly what you see on your keyboard. Punctuation and other keys have longer names which vary from X server to X server. To find the name of a key, see the describekey command. Or to find the name of a key not yet bound to an action, type C-t and then the key. ratpoison will tell you it isn't bound and give you the name of the key.

• Key Maps
• Default Key Bindings