6/22/2006
Getting the Windows key to work in GNOME/Ubuntu
After seeing Nick Thomas’s post, I thought it might be useful to actually do something with the Windows key on my keyboard in GNOME in Ubuntu. Here’s how I got it to work:
First, I had to go the Keyboard Preferences Panel, click on the Layout Options tab, expand Alt/Win key behavior, and select “Super is mapped to the Win-keys (default)”
Then in the Keyboard Shortcuts Panel, I could select “Show the panel run application dialog” and press Windows+R.
I also tried to map Calculator to Windows+C, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to work. Any ideas?
Steve Yegge had the interesting idea of using the Windows key to have a slew of available key bindings for Emacs, but I haven’t tried this yet.
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Hmm… That’s very interesting. So, you can bind Win-T and Win-R, but not Win-C. I’ll have to play with that the next time I boot into Ubuntu. If you turn out to be right, I’ll probably file a bug report, since this doesn’t seem to be documented behavior.
(N.B.: I think I got the CAPTCHA wrong on my first try submitting this. If this is double-posted, that’s why.)
I also wonder if this will work. I’ll probably try it later when I get home:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/hotkeys/
OK, I downloaded Hotkeys. I spend some time trying to get the damn thing to compile, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s suffering from some pretty bad bit rot. According to the change log, it was last updated in 2002. I’m assuming that it won’t compile on a modern system.
I was just in a bookstore looking at Linux Desktop Hacks and it mentionedthat hotkeys is kind of old and that a more modern program is Lineak. It also mentioned xosd (xosd-bin package in Ubuntu) which is used in conjuction with hotkeys or Lineak to do on-screen display of volume and such.
Marc,
Following you instructions (1. “Super is mapped…” and then setting the shortcuts as desire) worked like a charm.
Also for the record I can’t bind Win+C to anything either.
Cheers, Mark
Hey, awesome tip. Thanks for posting it. My system already feels much more responsive
it worked like a charm, thanks (y)
Simply great. you gave me the knowledge which I am looking for.
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well, it’s not just the “c” key or a specific keyrange… i get the feeling it’s something about the way gnome is invoking a command to get the app to open.
I tried binding win-s to gnome-terminal (something i’m used to using), which worked, and then bound it to mail program (i use kmail). no dice. Was able to bind win-C to terminal, but not to calculator.
This is the one (and possibly, only) thing that makes me pine a little for the cluttered sh!tty brightness of KDE or the simple efficiency of IceWM again–at least there I could make a key combo do pretty much whatever I wanted, and wasn’t restricted to 40 or so “actions”.