Keyboard Status Monitor (key-mon)

Utility to show live keyboard and mouse status for teaching and screencasts.

--theme=apple, cool new theme.

--smaller parameter:

--larger parameter:

--scale=2.0, and --meta parameter (for 'Windows' key), and mouse turned off through menu.

You can show multiple presses (here up to 2) by using --old-keys. Here I pressed 'Y', 'Y', 'P', which means something in vi.

--nomouse --old-keys 2:

--sticky

Support for sticky keys

--only_combo

Show only combination keys like Ctrl-A

Features:

• The window and buttons are scalable to any size.
• Different keyboard themes/styles supported, for example the Mac look.
• Can start without a window border and semi transparent to take up less space and be less intrusive.
• Right click provides an application menu.
• Supports the META (aka Windows) key.
• Supports the scroll wheel.
• Supports all three mouse buttons.
• Should support multiple mouses or keyboards.
• Move the window by dragging from anywhere inside.
• Swap the left and right mouse buttons for lefties.
• Support for touch tablets.
• Emulate middle click by clicking left and right mouse buttons.
• When the dialog is smaller a different set of images are used for a better look.
• Support for foreign keyboards.
• Ability to make your own keyboard scancode maps, for when the defaults don't work.
• Visible mouse click. Briefly show's a circle where you clicked.
• Option to show only key combinations.
• Support for accessibility feature, sticky keys

• Release Notes

Requirements:

• Linux or equivalent.
• GTK+
• pyGtk 2.0 (python-gtk2)
• XLib (python-xlib)
• X.Org "record" module.
• librsvg2-common library

Installation:

From zip. Download the zip file and unzip into a directory.

unzip key-mon*.zip
cd key-mon*
sudo python setup.py install

From deb package.

sudo dpkg -i key-mon*.deb

To run just type:

% key-mon

You can make the dialog --smaller or --larger.

Ex.

key-mon --smaller

Here's the help:

$ key-mon --help
Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s, --smaller         Make the dialog 25% smaller than normal.
  -l, --larger          Make the dialog 25% larger than normal.
  -m, --meta            Show the meta (windows) key.
  --nomouse             Hide the mouse.
  --noshift             Hide the shift key.
  --noctrl              Hide the ctrl key.
  --noalt               Hide the alt key.
  --scale=SCALE         Scale the dialog. ex. 2.0 is 2 times larger, 0.5 is half the size.
  --kbdfile=KBD_FILE    Use this kbd filename instead running xmodmap.
  --swap                Swap the mouse buttons.
  --emulate-middle      When you press the left, and right mouse buttons at the same time, it displays as a middle mouse button click.
  -v, --version         Show version information and exit.
  -t THEME, --theme=THEME
                        The theme to use when drawing status images (ex. "-t apple").

  Developer Options:
    These options are for developers.

    -d, --debug         Output debugging information.
    --screenshot=SCREENSHOT
                        Create a "screenshot.png" and exit. Pass a comma separated list of keys to simulate (ex. "KEY_A,KEY_LEFTCTRL").

Bugs/Features

• If you found a bug please click this link.
• If you want to request a feature please click this link.
• To see the list of outstanding bugs/feature requests click here.
• Do you use key-mon, why don't you add your name to the list of users?

Thanks:

• Original concept from from Daniel G. Taylor (from the program key-status-monitor).

Daniel also contributed a lot of the pretty themes.

• Original keyboard artwork by Jakub Steiner (jimmac).