GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 322542
shortcuts are pitifully minimalistic
Last modified: 2020-11-06 20:08:51 UTC
Version details: Debian unstable Distribution/Version: Debian unstable I recently bought one of those 'internet' keyboards. When trying to get it working in Gnome, I noticed: There is no GUI to bind programs to keyboard (launcher) keys. Shortcuts are limited to one key(combination). It would be nice to be able to bind a function to two different keys, especially when you switch keyboard. SuperL and SuperR (the 'win' keys) refuse to bind as modifiers. When I want to use them in a shortcut, gnome-keyboard-properties actually uses 'SuperL' as if it was a real key instead of expecting 'SuperL+RealKey'. It's not obvious which program is used as 'media player', or where it can be changed. I would like to be able to bind the multimedia keys to XMMS functions (like KDE shortcut settings offer, for instance). --> The KDE shortcut settings are quite nice and flexible; it took five minutes to set up with an 'internet' keyboard. Perhaps it could be taken as an example. Regards, Wouter PS: I'm not sure this is the right Gnome component to post this bug to, but I presume that 'Keyboard Shortcuts' in the Desktop->Preferences menu implies 'metacity shortcuts'.
Thanks for the report. Here's what I know (admittedly not all that much) on the issue: I don't know of a bug for wanting a GUI for editing the arbitrary run_command* and command* gconf keys. I wouldn't expect such a GUI to be part of the default installation anyway, though; it'd be more one of those power-user tools as the predefined actions would be more than enough for most basic users. Allowing actions to be bound to more than one key combinations is bug 164831. The super can't be bound as a modifier is bug 165343 in the control center. I'm not sure what you mean by the 'media player' comment. Multimedia key suckage is bug 133815 (again, the control-center) as far as I know; see also http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2005-February/msg00034.html (and despite the comments in that email, I don't think Bastien ever found the time to fix it). I'll mark as needinfo due to the media player thingy but we're going to have to resummarize to have this be about one specific issue if other bugs don't already cover it, or else close this bug and open up new ones for each issue not covered elsewhere.
Actually, maybe the multimedia key suckage is bug 135476 instead (or in addition?)...
The problem with the media-player launch button is that there is no place to define the actual program that it will launch. In Gnome, this key always launches "Media Player" -- which seems to be referring to Rhythmbox (I don't like Gnome's switch to generic names for its own software). I prefer to use old, simple XMMS. But I can't change which program is launched by the Gnome keyboard shortcut "Launch music player". I could unbind the XF86AudioMedia keysym there and just manually set up a launcher shortcut, but the bigger picture is that the "Media Player" should be configurable, ideally in "Preferred Applications" like the other programs. (That's one issue.) What I meant about binding the multimedia keys to XMMS, is this: I've noticed that KDE's shortcut configuration program can send a key sequence to a program as response to a keysym. This allows binding any keysym to any program function for which a shortcut exists. One example would be, upon receiving the 'XF86MediaPlay' keysym, sending 'X' (Play) to the window named 'XMMS_Player'. Similarly, XF86Copy/Cut/Paste keysyms can be bound to ctrl-x/c/v or ctrl-ins/shift-ins/shift-delete shortcuts. About a GUI for binding programs to launcher keys -- you might be right, I hadn't noticed yet that recent Gnome versions include Calculator, Email and similar common shortcuts. Perhaps a few extra would be nice, as some of those keyboards have 'Office' (word processor, spreadsheet, ...) shortcuts and such. I hope the double shortcuts will make it into Gnome, especially since Win(Tux)/Hyper_L/Mod4 still isn't recognised as modifier and all my window manager shortcuts are under that button. That bug is taking a very long time for something that seems rather easy to fix... Thanks for taking the time to reply, it's much appreciated. Wouter
Hmm... apparently I wasn't making myself clear. I have a 'media (player)' button on my keyboard. Gnome has a shortcut setting for it, but not for the program that button is supposed to launch. I want Gnome to start e.g. xmms when I press on the 'media' button. I don't know where I can set the actual program, instead of the one Gnome launches. Similarly, the 'volume' shortcuts operate the wrong mixer channel. There doesn't seem to be a way to set the channel to e.g. 'headphones'. My speakers already have a volume button; my headphones don't. Some of these like-wise things could be set in the 'preferred applications' dialog -- I guess it would make sense there.
There does not seem to be an avarage-user application for setting arbitrary keybinding->command combo's. This, to my knowledge, can only be done with gconf or some harder way. This is an annoyance to some. It could be of great use and hopefully Gnomish to have an keybinding option in 'Launcher Properties' of an application launcher icon.
Can this be done with System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts these days?
There is a GUI application called "keyTouch" that does what is being described here. http://keytouch.sourceforge.net/ Alternatively, arbitrary programs may be assigned to a keyboard shortcut via gconf. A tutorial is here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/assign-custom-shortcut-keys-on-ubuntu-linux/
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