i3 FAQ - Individual question feed

Trying to fix a bind key

Mon, 23 Mar 2015 15:20:54 +0000

Hello everyone, I am having an issue with setting up a bind key for brightness control keys. While I can do it, I am getting some errors. This is what I have: bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%" I am getting this error: ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: , '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'mode', 'bar' ERROR: Your command: exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%" ERROR:

Comment by BaNkS for

Hello everyone, I am having an issue with setting up a bind key for brightness control keys. While I can do it, I am getting some errors. This is what I have:

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"

I am getting this error:

ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: <end>, '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'mode', 'bar'
ERROR: Your command: exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"
ERROR:

Mon, 23 Mar 2015 18:47:21 +0000

Thanks :). That was actually a good idea. I made a helper script with all my notify-send commands and just made them into functions. Then use the key bind to call each specific function per keybinding. A notify-send helper script if you want to call it that. :)

Answer by i3convert for

Hello everyone, I am having an issue with setting up a bind key for brightness control keys. While I can do it, I am getting some errors. This is what I have:

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"

I am getting this error:

ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: <end>, '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'mode', 'bar'
ERROR: Your command: exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"
ERROR:

Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:25:48 +0000

Probably either all the nested quotes are too much for the i3 config parser or more character escaping is needed. One workaround would be to create a bash script that has those commands and just run the script.

Answer by i3convert for

Hello everyone, I am having an issue with setting up a bind key for brightness control keys. While I can do it, I am getting some errors. This is what I have:

bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"

I am getting this error:

ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: <end>, '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'mode', 'bar'
ERROR: Your command: exec --no-startup-id xbacklight -inc 10 && notify-send " $(xbacklight -get | awk '{printf "%.0f\n", $1}')%"
ERROR:

Mon, 23 Mar 2015 17:15:12 +0000

I don't think i3 knows anything about the `&&` operator. You have to either create a bash script the does the above and run it or do something like `bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id bash -c "CommandA && Command B"` where `CommandA` and `CommandB` are your commands.