Created attachment 5224 Patch against latest xfce4-power-manager I have enhanced xfce4-power-manager to support backlit keyboard brightness control through keyboard brightness keys. It uses org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight interface for increasing or decreasing the keyboard backlight brightness and binds with keys XF86XK_KbdBrightnessUp and XF86XK_KbdBrightnessDown. This feature is useful when the firmware does not handle the keyboard brightness control automatically. For example MacBook Pro leaves it to the OS to control the keyboard brightness through special keys. With this change, I can light up the keyboard on MacBook Pro and control its brightness through the special keys. I have also tested this on Lenovo X1 Carbon where the keyboard brightness is automatically handled by the firmware and this enhancement steps aside without interfering.
I tested this patch on a MBA (2013) and I can confirm that it works as intended. Thanks, this is really useful!
Thanks for the patch, pushed to master in: http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-power-manager/commit/?id=1d33e3eb8b9fd684c3a0fb6eaaa44b9ca0d13604