"Windows Keyboard" and Linux

[phishphreek]

Is there any way to make either the Gnome or KDE menu respond when you press the "windows" key on the keyboard? Or, set a key combo such as ctrl+esc will pop up the Gnome or KDE menu?

I like to navigate as much as possible with the keyboard and it doesn't seem that easy if you are in a GUI in linux. Most often than not, I'll use the cli... but still... it would be nice.

[preacherman481]

Hi,
I use KDE. Alt+F1 is the default to bring up the KDE menu.
If you use SUSE, go to Personal Setting>Keyboard Shortcuts>Shortcut Schemes
At the bottom of the screen there is a section called "Shortcut for selected action."
Click on "Custom Option" and it will let you reassign a different set of keys for a given shortcut.

For example you could do Win+Alt+Z to pop up the KDE menu.
For some reason though you can't just use the Win key by itself.

[cgkanchi]

Hmm,

I remember that you could use the windows key all by itself way back when KDE 1.x was in vogue. But for some odd reason, since KDE 2.x, it stopped working. Oh well....

Cheers,
cgkanchi

[RoadClosed]

Just pure speculation...

I am with you, the keyboard is much faster than moving a mouse. So this windows key was an extra key from the standard keyboard. That means MS wrote a driver for it. So maybe this driver is propietary and linux can't use it as a Key by itself? Who knows.

[preacherman481]

Hi all,
Hmm, well when I made my first post in this thread, I just went to the KDE Control Center and fiddled around a little. I posted my findings. But, there is a way to make the Win key pop up the KDE menu just by pressing the Win key.

I searched Google to find it Maybe I should have done that to begin with


KDE directions (First entry on Google)

Gnome Directions (Fourth entry on Google)

I know that the KDE directions work (at least with KDE 3.5.1). Actually, my left Win key does it, but the right one doesn't . I don't have Gnome so you'll have to try that out

[(V)/\><]

fluxbox, windows for this machine is Super_L, keycode 0x73:

~/.fluxbox/keys

None Super_L :ExecCommand aterm +sb -tr -shading 50 -foreground white -background black -fade 75 -tint red -fn fixed

Mod1 Super_L :ExecCommand aterm -loginShell -fade 75 -title "remoteMachine" -ls -sl 5000 +sb -tr -fg white -bg black -sh 35 -tint green -fn fixed -e ssh -C -Y -X -l root remotemachine.com

... and so on, with different modifiers used to connect to differend machines, each using a different color aterm.

who needs menus?

edit:

i remember on an old rh box to get this working with blackbox, i had to first map the scancode to the keycode, then map that to Super_L in some xmodmap config file, then use bbkeys to recognise Super_L and launch.