mjhjmtu

I am trying to configure Openbox's rc.xml file in order to manipulate my soundcards with one keypress. Because I have multiple sound cards on my system I have to manipulate multiple sinks at once so I use multiple commands separated with & like this:

 <keybind key="XF86AudioRaiseVolumen">
 <action name="Execute">
 <command>pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.multichannel-output +5% & pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo +5% & pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40 +5%</command>
 </action>
</keybind>

For some reason this won't work in rc.xml. Can anyone help me?

You need to put the commands into a shell script, make that script executable and then uses this script as the command.

<command>/usr/local/bin/volume_up</command>

The contents of /usr/local/bin/volume_up

#!/bin/sh
pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.multichannel-output +5% &
pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo +5% &
pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40 +5%

and make it executable

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/volume_up

The reason is that Openbox is not executing the contents of the command element in a shell instead it tries to execute it directly.

From the documentation for <command>:

A string which is the command to be executed, along with any arguments
to be passed to it. The "~" tilde character will be expanded to your
home directory, but no other shell expansions or scripting syntax may
be used in the command unless they are passed to the sh command. Also,
the & character must be written as & in order to be parsed
correctly. is a deprecated name for .

Another benefit is that you can rewrite the script to also be able lower the volume

#!/bin/sh

change_volume() 
 pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.multichannel-output "$1"
 pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo "$1"
 pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40 "$1"


main() 
 case "$1" in
 up)
 change_volume +5%
 ;;
 down)
 change_volume -5%
 ;;
 *)
 printf "volume <command>n"
 printf " up n"
 printf " downn"
 esac


main "$@"

This would be saved under /usr/local/bin/volume and would be use like this

<command>/usr/local/bin/volume up</command>
<command>/usr/local/bin/volume down</command>

If you do not mind the order and the fact that all of these will be executed more or less at once you can do:

<keybind key="XF86AudioRaiseVolumen">
 <action name="Execute">
 <command>pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.multichannel-output +5%</command>
 </action>

 <action name="Execute">
 <command>pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo +5%</command>
 </action>

 <action name="Execute">
 <command>pactl set-sink-volume alsa_output.usb-Focusrite_Scarlett_2i4_USB-00.analog-surround-40 +5%</command>
 </action>
</keybind>