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Matching Up Hotkeys for OS X and Linux GUIs?

Posted by timothy on from the bringing-on-the-singularity dept.

I use a MacBook Pro for my main machine, but also have a Ubuntu desktop. I get irritated about switching between command-oriented hotkeys and ctrl-oriented hotkeys (cmd-a on OSX = ctrl-a on Linux/windows). I've looked over a lot of forums and have found that Gnome doesn't seem capable of changing hotkeys, while xfce and fluxbox can. The ideal solution would be a way to change system keys in X, or at the system level — that way I can keep compiz. Does anyone have any ideas or know a trick to change system hot keys?

3 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What? by mbeans · · Score: 5, Informative

    IIRC, compiz has its own keybindings that override Gnome's.

    Install the ccsm package for a gui to configure it.

    --
    "It was a billion times better than cobol, but still really retarded." -AC
  2. xmodmap by Improv · · Score: 5, Informative

    man xmodmap

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
  3. not many know it, but it's easy to set gnome keys by formal_entity · · Score: 5, Informative
    On gnome Ubuntu you can go to System::Preferences::Appearence::Interface and then you check "Editable menu shortcut keys". After that close the dialog and go to any GNOME application. Try for instance gedit (the "Text Editor" application in GNOME). Now what you do is that you open the File menu, then you hover above the Open menu item and you press CTRL-A or whatever. This instantly rebinds the "Open" menu item with CTRL-A and so on.

    It's a shame that GNOME had hidden this EXTREMELY useful functionality. GNOME was supposed to be easy and intuitive right? Yeah right :) ;)

    I've used this a lot to fix the keybindings in GNOME which is very much broken. For example, I want CTRL-G for "Go to line" in gedit and I want to be able to open new tabs with CTRL-T like I do in the browser (which is now setting the standard because I spend so much time in the browser so that's what my brain in wired up for).