i3-kb-backlight

Keyboard backlight control and notifications. Written for use with i3wm, but works with any window manager or as a standalone script.

On-Screen Notifications

notify-osd	dunst

xosd	herbe

Installation

Dependencies

• awk (POSIX compatible)
• bc
• upower

Manual setup for i3wm

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/hastinbe/i3-kb-backlight.git ~/i3-kb-backlight

i3wm

Edit the following example and append it to your ~/.config/i3/config:

## Keyboard backlight control

# Path to backlight script
set $backlight_path ~/i3-kb-backlight

# Amount to increase/decrease brightness
set $brightness_step 1

bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessUp   exec $backlight_path/brightness -n increase $brightness_step
bindsym XF86KbdBrightnessDown exec $backlight_path/brightness -n decrease $brightness_step

Reload i3 configuration by pressing mod+Shift+r

Usage

Use your keyboard backlight brightness keys to increase or decrease your brightness.When notifications are enabled a popup will display the brightness level.

Notifications

Several different programs are supported for on-screen notifications. Including but not limited to dunst and notify-osd. See the notifications command for a list of supported notification methods.

Standalone

This script does not require any particular desktop environment and can be used as a standalone script.

Command-line options

Usage: ./brightness [<options>] <command> [<args>]
Control keyboard backlight brightness.

Commands:
  increase <value>      increase brightness
  decrease <value>      decrease brightness
  notifications         show available notification methods
  help                  display help

Options:
  -e <expires>          expiration time of notifications in ms
  -i <icon>             name of keyboard brightness icon
  -n                    enable notifications
  -N <method>           notification method (default: libnotify)
  -p                    enable progress bar
  -h                    display help

### Examples

# Increase brightness only
./brightness increase

# Decrease brightness by 3
./brightness decrease 3

# Notifications using herbe, progress bar
./brightness -np -N herbe increase

# Notifications using libnotify with notify-send, custom icon name, expiration time of 2.5 seconds
./brightness -n -i keyboard-brightness -e 2500 increase

# Notifications using libnotify with dunstify, custom symbolic icon, custom dunstify path
env DUNSTIFY_PATH=/path/to/dunst/ ./brightness -npy -i keyboard-brightness-symbolic increase

# Notifications using XOSD
./brightness -n -N xosd increase

Migrating

Version 1.x to 2.x

Version 2 introduces commands which makes it incompatible with previous versions. Your command-line usage and/or configured hotkeys need to be updated to reflect this.

Change	v1	v2
-d is now the decrease command	brightness -d 1	brightness decrease
-i is now the increase command	brightness -i 1	brightness increase

License

i3-kb-backlight is released under GNU General Public License v2

Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.