i3/sway - How to bindsym minus and equal sign - i3

Question

I want to map the pactl volume control to:
$mod+(equal sign) to increase volume and
$mod+(minus sign) to decrease volume
But sway doens't take $mod+=, it writes: Unknown key or button '=' (the same is with the minus sign)

Answer 1

You can bindsym equal using bindsym $mod+equal and minus using bindsym $mod+minus
you can then increase/decrease the volume by 5% with pactl by:
bindsym $mod+equal exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-volume #DEFAULT_SINK# +5%
bindsym $mod+minus exec --no-startup-id pactl set-sink-volume #DEFAULT_SINK# -5%
For other keys, you can find the key symbol name by installing:
xev if running i3
wev if running sway
Running either of these programs from the terminal will open up a new window, and any events captured by that window (e.g. mouse moves, key presses etc.) will be printed in the terminal.
For example, I have sway installed. If I run wev and press the equal sign key I get:
[14: wl_keyboard] key: serial: 31683; time: 272340704; key: 21; state: 1 (pressed)
sym: equal (61), utf8: '='
where the key symbol is given by the sym field.
when running xev:
KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x600001,
root 0x2a0, subw 0x0, time 272462577, (372,40), root:(1179,512),
state 0x0, keycode 21 (keysym 0x3d, equal), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3d) "="
XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (3d) "="
XFilterEvent returns: False
where the symbol is given by the second value in the keysym field.