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Sticky Keys Under X Window

Sticky Keys in X Window

Because of RSI symptoms in my right wrist, I decided to use sticky keys for modifier keys in my Linux machine. I use Debian with Ratpoison window manager and do most of the work in Emacs. I know that GNOME and KDE has their independent support for sticky keys, however I don't want switch to them for this.

When I looked for a solution in X Window generic, I found pages like this but their approach wasn't particularly tasteful for me. So I was looking for a solution using some kind of parameters in xorg.conf file. I couldn't find but when I was checking aptitude for packages starting with xkb, I found xkbset just for this task.

When you write in xterm

 $ xkbset st 

it enables sticky keys for the running X session. By default it also enables bell when you press a modifier key and disables sticky keys when you press both keys. To disable these you may change the above line to

 $ xkbset st -b -twokey 

There are many other options of xkbset, like mouse keys or enabling sticky keys when you press shift 5 times. You may check these by

 $ xkbset h

I decided to add the above line to my .ratpoisonrc file (which is run in my window manager in startup) like:

 exec xkbset st -b -twokey

For other window managers, you can use .xinitrc file in home directory or any other file which is run while starting up an X session.