how to set keybinding in gnome?
Xah Lee
to set keybindings in it. This is pretty much my first time in Gnome.
Last time i ran linux is about 10 years ago.
The 2 GUI apps i explored from the system pref panel: “gnome-
keybinding-properties” and “gnome-keyboard-properties” don't seem to
be able to do what i want.
here's my questions.
• I want the Menu key (aka App key) to be Hyper. How to do that?
• In emacs 23 with -Q, the Menu key is execute-extended-command. I'm
not sure how it became that. Any idea? I want caps lock to be execute-
extended-command. Is that possible in X11+Gnome+emacs? or do i need
some other util?
• According to the keyboard layout display, Gnome says my Win key is
Super and Caps Lock is Hyper, but in emacs 23 -Q, emacs reports both
to be Hyper.
• How to change the Win key to Super or Hyper?
• Is it possible to define app-specific key macros? For example, i
want the substract (-) key on keypad to type Ctrl+w (close tap) in
Firefox, and the / and * keys to be 【Ctrl+PageUp】 (prev tab) and 【Ctrl
+PageDn】 (next tap). (i know this is possible by modding Firefox
config files, but i want general X11 mechanism because i need to do
this for other apps.)
• It seems gnome save key config files in 〔/home/ubuntu/.gconf/apps〕
and 〔/home/ubuntu/.gnome2〕, but there's bewildering number of files
there. Is there a documentation somewhere? (am interested at least for
the key config part generated by the gnome keybinding apps. The Help
documentation stops at grandma level. 「man gnome-keybinding-
properties」 doesn't return anything. Web search is a bit hard because
there's too much linux stuff and a lot are laymen questions and i'm
not familiar where to look.)
Also, are these gnome apps (gnome-keybinding-properties, gnome-
keyboard-properties) working on top of x11's xmodmap or something
independent? I don't see any X11 config file in my home dir at all.
Any tip appreciated. Thanks.
Xah
rusi
Hi Xah
I am far from being expert on this but you may want to look at gconf-
editor
Then go to apps -> metacity
Another thing which may be of interest is wmctrl.
Rusi
Stefan Monnier
> I am far from being expert on this but you may want to look at gconf-editor
> Then go to apps -> metacity
> Another thing which may be of interest is wmctrl.
Actually, Xah's request has nothing to do with the window-manager.
>> here's my questions.
None of them have much to do with Emacs. If you want to do it the GUI
way, you may start by looking at "Options..." in the "Layouts" pane of
the "Keyboard preferences". It only offers a predefined set of options,
so it won't cover all your needs.
If you want to go further, you can play around with xmodmap or read
about XKB, or ask in an X11 or Gnome newsgroup/forum/bugtracker.
Stefan
Xah Lee
Hi Rus,
thanks. I'll check them out. My PC got mysterious hardware problems,
so right now it won't boot. (kernal panic and other odd errors, one
day it boots next won't...) So at the moment am typing on my 6 years
old mac... (long story short, my PC got probs, so in desperation in
past month tried installing linux, thinking it's a MS Windows software
problem... but am pretty sure by now it's hardware too) The linux was
just running fine in past 2 days and i was getting excited about all
new keyboard config issues, but after i posted this message, afraid to
restart but had to, now wont boot... which happened before too.
Xah
Xah Lee
> >>>>> "rusi" == rusi <rustompm...@gmail.com> writes:
> > I am far from being expert on this but you may want to look at gconf-editor
> > Then go to apps -> metacity
> > Another thing which may be of interest is wmctrl.
>
> Actually, Xah's request has nothing to do with the window-manager.
>
> >> here's my questions.
>
> None of them have much to do with Emacs.
there's a couple emacs questions though.
* by default, the Menu key is execute-extended-command. Is that
default from GNU Emacs compiled for GNU/Linux, or some distro
downstream did that?
* i wondered bout how to set Win key and Menu key to one of Hyper or
Super, on linux. Is this completely external to emacs? For Windows or
Mac, i know there's w32-* variables e.g.
w32-apps-modifier 'hyper
et al
and for Mac there's
mac-option-modifier 'hyper
et al
but for unix/linux i didn't find any appropriate info in emacs doc, as
if the win and mac are just special vars for them. However, i did
discover the var x-hyper-keysm. However, it sets a key to hyper, but
the possible valid values does not include the Menu key.
> If you want to do it the GUI
> way, you may start by looking at "Options..." in the "Layouts" pane of
> the "Keyboard preferences". It only offers a predefined set of options,
> so it won't cover all your needs.
haha. here you completely glossed over. I was specific that i explored
all the gui options, in fact mentioned them by their command name few
times.
> If you want to go further, you can play around with xmodmap or read
> about XKB, or ask in an X11 or Gnome newsgroup/forum/bugtracker.
so i guess the gnome gui for key setting does ultimately rely on
xmodmap? Ok, i'll look for answer in those communities.
Xah
Stefan Monnier
> default from GNU Emacs compiled for GNU/Linux, or some distro
> downstream did that?
IIRC this has been the default "for ever".
> * i wondered bout how to set Win key and Menu key to one of Hyper or
> Super, on linux. Is this completely external to emacs?
Yes.
>> If you want to go further, you can play around with xmodmap or read
>> about XKB, or ask in an X11 or Gnome newsgroup/forum/bugtracker.
> so i guess the gnome gui for key setting does ultimately rely on
> xmodmap? Ok, i'll look for answer in those communities.
No, it relies on XKB, IIUC. It seems that xmodmap is kind of deprecated
nowadays, tho I don't fully understand ho XKB and xmodmap are related.
Stefan
Xah Lee
oh i see. i've been greatly out of the loop. XKB is great info, never
heard of before, but now a look at wikipedia seems i'll be quite busy
for days... probably months. Thanks!
Xah
David Combs
As far as I can tell, a Sun keyboard (type 6, I think, the one with
"control" in the CORRECT place, just left of the "a") has no
windows key (nor the other one mentioned, a "super" key, was
that it?).
David
Xah Lee
On Jun 11, 12:25 am, dkco...@panix.com (David Combs) wrote:
│ Just a reminder here:
now, this post gotta be a troll — one fat piece of meat waiting for me
to byte, and how i cannot resist, as tech geekers wont to say.
Hi David Combs, if i recall correctly, you are the one insistently
complain, like Alan Mackenzie have done, politely to boot, several
times in the past years, that newsgroup posts shouldn't use unicode
chars such as “” «» → etc. LOL And as i've mentioned a thousand times,
a decade and two ago the same tech geekers insisted that web shouldn't
commericialize, that it should remain plain text, that GUI is for
idiots, and MIME is a plague. (and these same idiots today toting
iPad, Amazon Kindle in their hands, sipping coffee pleasurably at
Starbucks, banter on commercial sites such as slashdot, reddit, hacker
news, about software ethics, while grabbing movie files from pirate
bay, because, after all, information should be free.)
So, what shall i say about the « Sun keyboard (type 6, I think, the
one with "control" in the CORRECT place, just left of the "a") has no
windows key (nor the other one mentioned, a "super" key, was that
it?).»?
if you are a typical conservative tech geeker with coding experience
back to the 1980s, then, the CORRECT position for Control key for
emacs use today is at the 2 Alt key on standard PC keyboards. In
contrast, if you are not the conservative hacker of old school, then
the correct position is to tell FSF to wipe out emacs's keyboard
shortcut set. Wipe it out. All of it.
References:
〈Sun Microsystem's “Type 6” Keyboard〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/sun_microsystems_keyboard.html
〈How To Avoid The Emacs Pinky Problem〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_pinky.html
〈Why You Should Not Swap Caps Lock With Control〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/swap_CapsLock_Ctrl.html
〈Why Emacs's Keyboard Shortcuts Are Painful〉
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html
O, by the way, recently i discovered this from emacs manual of version
23.2, node ((emacs) User Input), quote:
(1) We refer to <Alt> as <Meta> for historical reasons.
O, so FSF refer to Alt as Meta. I didn't know that! I double checked
and that line wasn't in emacs manual of 22.0.50. For a moment i
thought it reads “Xah refers Alt as Meta, because he's a troll.”.
Xah