Using 'xinput test' instead of showkey

This change removes the sudo dependency.
Note: inside a Docker container showkey does not work.

README.md

@@ -23,8 +23,8 @@ See a blog post (along with multiple screenshots) describing the project [here.]
 **To start recording**
 
 1. Clone the repository to some folder: `$ git clone https://github.com/karpathy/ulogme.git`
-2. If you're on Ubuntu, make sure you have the dependencies: `$ sudo apt-get install xdotool`. On Fedora, you may also need `sudo yum install gnome-screensaver`.
-3. `cd` inside and run `$ ./ulogme.sh` (note: this will ask you for sudo authentication which is required for `showkey` command). This will launch two scripts. One records the frequency of keystrokes and the other records active window titles. Both write their logs into log files in the `logs/` directory. Every log file is very simply just the unix time stamp followed by data, one per line.
+2. If you're on Ubuntu, make sure you have the dependencies: `$ sudo apt-get install xinput xdotool`. On Fedora, you may also need `sudo yum install gnome-screensaver`.
+3. `cd` inside and run `$ ./ulogme.sh`. This will launch two scripts. One records the frequency of keystrokes and the other records active window titles. Both write their logs into log files in the `logs/` directory. Every log file is very simply just the unix time stamp followed by data, one per line.
 4. For **OSX** only: there might be an additional step where you have to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility, and make sure that Terminal (or iTerm2, or whatever you use to launch ulogme) is checked. If it wasn't checked previously and you just checked it, you may need to restart ulogme. If you don't do this step, you might find that window logging works but keypress logging doesn't.
 
 **The user interface**

keyfreq.sh

@@ -7,21 +7,27 @@
 
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 
-helperfile="logs/keyfreqraw.txt" # temporary helper file
+helperfile="logs/keyfreqraw" # temporary helper file
 
 mkdir -p logs
 
 while true
 do
-  showkey > $helperfile &
-  PID=$!
-
-  # work in windows of 9 seconds 
-  sleep 9
-  kill $PID
+  windowLength=9 #seconds
+  # check each possible keyboard
+  keyboardIds=$(xinput | grep 'slave  keyboard' | grep -o 'id=[0-9]*' | cut -d= -f2)
+  # and grep only the updated ones
+  filesToGrep=''
+  for id in $keyboardIds; do
+      fileName="$helperfile.$id"
+      timeout $windowLength xinput test $id > $fileName &
+      filesToGrep+="$fileName "
+  done
+  sleep $windowLength
+  sleep .5 #make sure that all `xinput test` finished
 
   # count number of key release events
-  num=$(cat $helperfile | grep release | wc -l)
+  num=$(grep release $filesToGrep | wc -l)
 
   # append unix time stamp and the number into file
   logfile="logs/keyfreq_$(python rewind7am.py).txt"

ulogme.sh

@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ if [ "$(uname)" == "Darwin" ]; then
   ./osx/run_ulogme_osx.sh
 else
   # Assume Linux
-  sudo echo -n ""
-  sudo ./keyfreq.sh &
+  ./keyfreq.sh &
   ./logactivewin.sh
 fi