Change modifier (control) key in Chromium on linux?

[ben lamothe]

Hi. I'm having a problem that was pretty minor when I first noticed it, but it is now becoming increasingly frustrating. I've looked around the web as well as this forum and haven't found a solution yet.

I recently switched back from mac os to linux. While I'm generally happy with my decision, Chrome in mac os used the command (super) key as it's default modifier, while Chromium under linux uses control. That doesn't sound like a big difference, but the problem is that about 99% of web forms that I've come across also use emacs style key bindings by default to make editing easier. Think <control-a> to jump to the beginning of a line, <control-e> for the end of line, <control-p> for the line above, <control-n> for the line below, <control-k> to delete the line, etc. These web form shortcuts get clobbered by Chromium on linux, but they're fine on mac because mac uses the super (command) key. it gets really frustrating when I type, say, <control-p> and a print dialogue pops up interrupting my work when I just wanted to go to the line above where I was editing.

I use emacs so much that I think it will be hard if not impossible to unlearn these shortcuts, and besides, there is a perfectly good super (windows) key on my keyboard that i'm not using at all. How can I map my windows key in chromium so that it can be used to manipulate chrome and avoid clobbering all the control based shortcuts that I'm so used to. If there isn't a way to remap the windows key to take the place of control, then is there any way at all to avoid my shortcuts being clobbered, even if it means i'll always have to e.g. print or open a new window from the menu?

[Hector Carmona]

I think the emacs style shortcuts are provided by the Mac OS, so you may not get your shortcuts back even if you remapped the modifier key.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts#Text_editing

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[ben lamothe]

Ahhhh, that would be tragic. It looks like I might have a bit more work to do after I get chrome to relinquish the control key. Thanks for pointing this out to me, but I still think that I need to figure out how to get chromium to recognize a different modifier key as step one to get these shortcuts back.

Thanks a lot for pointing that out to me. 

[Primiano Tucci]

I share your feelings: if you are used to Win/Linux getting used to META-key shortcuts is dramatic.

On the other side, I don't think there is anything we should do/change in Chromium. It is just following the model imposed by the platform and using rational shortcuts according to the Mac standards.

I managed to actually solve this problem once for all (in chromium and all in other apps) using this software: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

You can just remap all the keys (e.g. Fn -> key to Meta-Key) and it works like a charm.

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Primiano Tucci
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Google UK Limited
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