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Windows key function in KDE gone?

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gnutux

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Wednesday, May 18th 2005, 1:44am

Windows key function in KDE gone?

Dear KDE and KDE members,

I have been using KDE since my first Linux distro. It's the best desktop environment I've used. Something about the new 3.4.0 is getting me irritated. THE WINDOWS KEY FUNCTION IS GONE!!! Now, it will not show the K Menu when pressed!

Someone, please help!


Sincerely,
gnutux

[EDIT: Whoops, can someone move this to another category, I posted in the wrong category, sorry]

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "gnutux" (May 18th 2005, 1:45am)

mart_k

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Wednesday, May 18th 2005, 7:17am

RE: Windows key function in KDE gone?

The Windows-key is just another key, so you can bind it in the configuration to everything you like. There are (at least) two possibilities why it isn't working. First is that the keyboard layout is set wrong, and X doesn't know about a Windows-key. Second is that the Windows-key isn't bound to the "Open K-menu" action.

The first possibility you can check in KControl->Region and Accessibility->Keyboard Layout (note: these names are translated from Dutch, so the exact name could differ).
The second possibility you can check in KControl->Region and Accessibility->Shortcuts->General Keys->Panel->Open KDE Menu (again: translated from Dutch).

gnutux

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Sunday, May 22nd 2005, 5:31pm

ok, I tried to set the Win key as the pop-up kmenu key but it thinks that the Win key operates like the SHIFT key :S.

Is there a work around, anyways, what's US Keyboard (w/ deadkeys) layout means?

gnutux

mart_k

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Sunday, May 22nd 2005, 9:01pm

Quoted

Originally posted by gnutux
ok, I tried to set the Win key as the pop-up kmenu key but it thinks that the Win key operates like the SHIFT key :S.

Is there a work around, anyways, what's US Keyboard (w/ deadkeys) layout means?

gnutux
Dead keys allows shortcuts for accents. For example, an e with a trema can be made with "e. To get a ", enter "". There are also other ways to make these accents. You can make a compose-key for it (for example, a Window key), an get e treme with Compose, ", e.

Maybe you can try the default layout for a keyboard with 104 keys.

gnutux

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Monday, May 23rd 2005, 12:40am

my keyboard layout is the Generic 104 keys (US) keymap.

gnutux

mart_k

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Monday, May 23rd 2005, 9:19pm

That should be the right layout. You can also try if the keys are different for X. To do that, execute the program xev from a konsole. A small window appears, and many output appears in the konsole. If you press a key (or move the mouse), a lot of information is showed about that action. To get the information over the Windows-key and the Shift-key, ensure that the xev-windows is active and press that key. After that, look to the data that appears in the konsole. Is the Windows key registered (if you doubt, please post the relevant lines)?

gnutux

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Tuesday, May 24th 2005, 2:48am

This is what xev shows me:

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KeyPress event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0xd0, subw 0x0, time 90236137, (221,-81), root:(225,681),
    state 0x10, keycode 115 (keysym 0xffeb, Super_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 30, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001,
    root 0xd0, subw 0x0, time 90236280, (221,-81), root:(225,681),
    state 0x50, keycode 115 (keysym 0xffeb, Super_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:


xboxrulz

mart_k

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Tuesday, May 24th 2005, 7:22am

It seems to be bound correctly. I now think I understand what you mean with "another SHIFT key" (the configuration refuses to allow the Windows-key alone). The solution is proberly in the third tabpage in the settings for hotkeys. There are the modification-keys. You don't want SUPER_L to be a modification key. Unforfunally, the settings doesn't seems to allow you to change that. To remove it manually,

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xmodmap -e "remove Mod4 = Super_L"
should do the trick, but it doesn't work here yet.

mart_k

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Tuesday, May 24th 2005, 4:08pm

I now have it working with a hack. It is possible to register the Windows-key as F13. That way, the configation will not wait for another key in combination. This can be executed from the konsole with

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xmodmap -e "keycode 115 = F13"
I don't know if my previous line is still neccesairy, but I think you find out fast enought...

To do this automaticly at startup, you can add these rules to the file ~/.xmodmap. It should at least contain the line

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keycode 115 = F13
, and maybe also that other line. If it is not started at startup, execute xmodmap ~/.xmodmap in a script that is executed at logon.

Note that this makes combinations as Win+E inpossible (well, you can use the other win-button for that).

gnutux

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Tuesday, May 24th 2005, 11:28pm

where do I put this file, as in what directory?

The distro I'm using is SuSE Linux 9.3


gnutux

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "gnutux" (May 24th 2005, 11:41pm)

mart_k

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Wednesday, May 25th 2005, 6:54am

~/.Xmodmap means /home/username/.Xmodmap. If you execute the editor from a konsole, you can just type kedit ~/.Xmodmap.

Note 1: After searching on the internet, .Xmodmap seems more common then .xmodmap, so the chance that .Xmodmap is executed automaticly is bigger then .xmodmap.
Note 2: If it isn't executed, you can add a script in ~/.kde/env/ with the name xmodmap.sh containing

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#!/bin/bash
xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

gnutux

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Wednesday, May 25th 2005, 11:31pm

thanx, it worked.

gnutux

glomy

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Saturday, July 2nd 2005, 5:17pm

Win key working without turning it to an F13 key

I wonder if it's possibly to make the separate win key working without turning it to a fake F13 key? It seems like the KDE developers didn't really implement the Windows key handling properly, since the Win key is handled more like SHIFT key so it cannot be used separately (this opens the start menu in windows).
Maybe KDE 3.5 can fix the problem? I really like the de Win key handling in Windows, and would really like to use them aswell in KDE, incluiding the seperate Win key press.

anda_skoa

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Saturday, July 2nd 2005, 10:59pm

Very likely the Xserver treats that key like a modifier in which case you have to tell it that you want to be treated like a normal key like the other postings suggest.

Cheers,
_
Qt/KDE Developer
Debian User

daihard

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Saturday, September 3rd 2005, 5:10pm

Quoted

Originally posted by mart_k
~/.Xmodmap means /home/username/.Xmodmap. If you execute the editor from a konsole, you can just type kedit ~/.Xmodmap.

Note 1: After searching on the internet, .Xmodmap seems more common then .xmodmap, so the chance that .Xmodmap is executed automaticly is bigger then .xmodmap.
Note 2: If it isn't executed, you can add a script in ~/.kde/env/ with the name xmodmap.sh containing

Source code

 
1
2

#!/bin/bash
xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap

Hi.

I'm not the OP, but I was wondering about the same problem. The Linux distro I was using before had the Windows key mapped to F13 by default so I didn't know how to set it up manually with FC4 / KDE 3.4.2. Thanks for the informative posts!

Since I wanted the change to take effect on all the users on this computer, I added the line ("keycode 115= F13") to /etc/X11/Xmodmap. It's working very well for me. :D
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