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[Bug 1113420] Re: Alt+<key> window menu shortcuts cannot be disabled

 

This is a general problem across Unity, and it is SUPREMELY annoying.

I like to use <alt>-t to open a terminal, and various other keyboard
shortcuts that use <alt> as the only modifier. That has always worked,
but it's broken on Unity: when I start an application that has a menu
that starts with the letter 't', that application steals the shortcut.
Instead of popping up a new terminal, it opens that menu.

Even worse, even after quitting the application the keyboard shortcut
remains broken.

To reproduce:
- in Unity settings -> keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Launchers change the "Launch terminal" shortcut to ALT+T
- hit <alt>-t, new  terminial pops up
- start Thunderbird or Okular, both of which have a "Tools" menu
- note <alt>-t now opens the Tools menu
- kill the application
- hit <alt>-t, nothing happens

The keyboard shortcut is still there in the settings. Restarting Unity
makes it work again.

Note that the applications that trigger this use GTK2 and Qt,
respectively. There is nothing wrong with an application registering
menu keyboard shortcuts -- but the window manager cannot be overruled by
an application!

Unity's keyboard shortcuts *must* take precedence.

-- 
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1113420

Title:
  Alt+<key> window menu shortcuts cannot be disabled

Status in Unity:
  New
Status in nautilus package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  I find the <alt> key ergonomically very useful (it can be pressed with
  a thumb without moving any of the "letter" fingers) and I would like
  to use it for many custom keyboard shortcuts (there is a reason why it
  plays such a big role in Emacs and the whole OS X for that matter).

  Currently, though, <alt> is hardcoded to activate window menu entries
  (such as <alt>+F for the file menu, <alt>+E for the edit menu) and
  there is no way to surpass this functionality in all the applications.
  Personally, I find these shortcuts quite useless - they take you to
  "copy", "paste", and "open file" which have standard shortcuts anyway
  (with the exception of preferences, which for some reason don't have a
  standardized shortcut even though that's often the only thing a person
  looks for up there).

  Expected behaviour
  -----------------------------

  What I would like to see is a global option to disable these alt+<key> menu shortcuts to free up the <alt> key for other uses (similar to the option already available in gnome-terminal, only global). Preferably, activating this option would also remove the first-letter underlining in the menu to indicate to users that they can't acess it through shortcuts. 
   
  (I marked nautilus for apport to collect my version numbers, but this affects most applications - didn't know what the right target is)

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
  Package: nautilus 1:3.5.90.really.3.4.2-0ubuntu4.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-23.35-generic 3.5.7.2
  Uname: Linux 3.5.0-23-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Sat Feb  2 13:22:32 2013
  ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
  GsettingsChanges:
   b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'geometry' b"'931x626+1+80'"
   b'org.gnome.nautilus.window-state' b'start-with-status-bar' b'true'
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-10-19 (106 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
  MarkForUpload: True
  SourcePackage: nautilus
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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