keybord and application shortcuts on XFCE4: weird things occur
 

Dear all,

i have just installed debian wheezy on a new computer with xfce4. I have some strange things happening with keyboard shortcuts and apps.

some shortcuts will not be saved when I log out, when others will... for instance the <primary><Alt>m will not be remembered when I log out but the <primary><Alt>u will. THe same for application shortcuts: <primary><Alt>w will not but <primary><Alt>i will remain... If I set them again, they work fine for the current session. I have checked the 'save session' on log-out

could it be possible that keyboard keys that change between layout (w, m, etc; i have an azerty layout) will actually not be remembered? or is it something else?

last, the keyboard shortcut for "hide window" does not work all the time and I don't know why.

two last things:
- I cannot copy and paste in the terminal using <primary>shiftC and <primary>shiftV: no idea why
- what is the <Super> key???

Is it only the shortcuts (key combinations) involving keys that are different between azerty and qwerty keyboards that have this problem?
What's "<primary>"?
Also known as the Windows key.

@ catkin,

thanks for your answer. To continue on the topic

yes: apparently so far I had problems only with the following keys: m and w; I haven't tried the other one. t, h, l, d, u, i work fine for instance. I would find it strange that it comes from the keyboard layout.

<primary> is CRTL; it's the way it is reported when I use it as a keyboard shortcut. So how do you copy and paste in the terminal. I used to use CTRL + V and CTRL + C. I found out that SHIFT+Insert works for pasting. But it's not really practical and I still don't have a copy command.

for <Super> key: thanks it's... super.

Strange but apparently true. What's in ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/xfce4-settings-manager.xml for the failing hotkeys? What happens if (with xfce not running) you swap the qwerty/azerty letters in the shortcut definitions in that file?

Which terminal? I use urxvt and have it set up so selection does copy and Ctrl+Shift+v does paste. Ctrl+c is not an option because it is used to generate an interrupt in all(?) shells. Middle mouse (or mouse wheel click) are also popular equivalents of Shift+Insert so may be set up on your system.

@catkin

Hi, thank you for answering.

So i had a look into ~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/ and I can only find the following file xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml.

I looked at the appropriate shortcuts when using keys I do not wish to use and it says:
<property name="<Primary><Alt>l" type="string" value="maximize_window_key"/>

when using keys I want to use once I have logged in (that is when it actually works) it says:
<property name="<Primary><Alt>m" type="string" value="maximize_window_key"/>

when logging out and coming back from the previous set up ('m' key that does not work) it says:
<property name="<Primary><Alt>m" type="string" value="maximize_window_key"/>

So it looks like the shortcut is set properly (at least it is set up the same) but the problem must come from somewhere else no? ANy idea?

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I am using "xterm" for terminal. I will look into how to set it up.

Thanks,

AFAIK Xfce saves config files when the session is logged out so that could be what is changing the file from what works to what does not work.

It might be helpful to report this as a bug.

Meanwhile, how to workaround it? You could arrange to replace xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml with a working copy before Xfce loads it. That could easily be done with a boot script but it would fail if you did not reboot between logins. The more robust solution is to hook into the graphical login sequence, after authentication and before Xfce starts. Unfortunately that is not well documented and seems to change with every release.

You could try creating ~/.xprofile with a command to replace xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml with a working copy. That file is sourced by several (many? all?) graphical login managers so it might work. Give ~/.xprofile 755 permissions (more than required -- can always be cut back later) and do not put an exit command in it!

If that doesn't work other possibilities are ~/.profile and /etc/xprofile but neither are as appropriate as ~/.xprofile

Hi Catkin,

I thinkg I'm gonna make it simple and get used to the new keyboard shortcuts! Your recommandations are above my league unfortunately. Thanks for the tip though.

best,