Setting a Shortcut

Documentation / Contents - Menu & Shortcuts

• Overview of Menu & Shortcuts
  • Two Pages, Two Files
  • Who Is In Charge
• Editing the Desktop Menu
  • Reading the Tree
  • Changing a Label or a Command
  • Adding Items, Submenus and Separators
  • Deleting and Reordering
  • Reload File
• Editing Shortcuts
  • The Action List
  • The Inspector
• Setting a Shortcut
  • Arming the Capture
  • When a Chord Is Already Taken
  • Clear and Reset Default
  • Reset All Defaults
• The Action Catalog
  • Window
  • Desktop
  • Tiling
  • Session
  • Launchers
• Where the Settings Live
  • The Shortcuts File
  • The Menu File
  • The Legacy Keys File
• The Status Line
• Keys and Shortcuts in the Editor
• Copyright Information

Setting a Shortcut

Arming the Capture

1. Select an action in the list. Not a category heading. 2. Press Set Shortcut... . The button changes to read "Press keys...", the pointer becomes a hand, and the status line reads "Press a shortcut (Esc cancels)." 3. Press the combination you want. Hold the modifiers and press the key.

While the capture is armed, the editor holds the keyboard. Modifier keys on their own are ignored, so you can hold Ctrl and Alt for as long as you like; the first key that is not a modifier forms the chord.

To cancel, press Escape, or press the button a second time. The status line reads "Capture cancelled." and nothing is changed.

On success the status line reads, for example, "Bound Control+Alt+k -> session.osk", the file is written, and the window manager is told to reload. The chord is live at once.

If the editor cannot take the keyboard, the status line reads "Could not grab keyboard for capture." Some other program is holding it. Dismiss whatever menu or drag is in progress and try again.

Chord Spelling

Chords are written modifier-first, joined with "+", ending in one key name:

Control+Alt+k
Alt+F10
Super+Shift+1
Alt+space

The modifier names are Control, Alt, Shift and Super. "Ctrl" is accepted as a spelling of Control, "Mod1" of Alt and "Mod4" of Super. An unbound action is written as "None" or as "-".

When a Chord Is Already Taken

The editor refuses to bind a chord that another action already owns. It does not silently steal it and it does not create a duplicate. The status line names the action that has it, in English and by technical id, and the list selects that action so you can see it.

Two ways forward: pick a different chord, or select the owner, Clear it, and then come back.

Re-binding an action to the chord it already has is not a conflict; it succeeds and changes nothing.

Only the shortcuts in this table are checked. A key your application has claimed for itself is not visible here, and the window manager will win: a session shortcut is grabbed before the application sees the key.

Clear and Reset Default

Clear unbinds the selected action. The chord it had is freed for something else, and the status line reads "Cleared (unbound)." The action still exists and can be bound again later.

Reset Default puts the selected action back to the chord it shipped with, and reports "Restored stock default for this action."

Reset All Defaults

At the bottom left of the Shortcuts page. This throws away every shortcut change you have made and restores the stock set for every action. It asks first, in a warning dialog whose default button is Cancel, because it is not undoable. Confirm and the status line reads "All shortcuts restored to stock defaults."

The stock chords are listed in The Action Catalog.