[kde-linux] KDE - What is 'Meta'?

[Duncan]

Thomas Taylor posted on Sat, 04 May 2013 17:43:57 -0700 as excerpted:

> On Sat, 4 May 2013 15:16:51 -0700 Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> I want to enable keyboard shortcuts for moving windows from screen to
>> screen. (monitor to monitor on the same desktop) When searching around
>> on the web I see people doing it with Meta+F1, Meta+F2, etc., but
>> somehow I am not discovering what Meta is.
>> 
>> What's 'Meta'?
>> 
> Meta is just a label used to identify a key you have configured.

Perhaps more directly to the point (as hinted at by the below), meta is 
often the key commonly referred to as the "win" key.  Depending on 
configuration, "the Win key" is usually detected as one of meta/super/
hyper.
 
> To configure a "meta" key go to "start > Configure Desktop > Input
> Devices> Keyboard > Advanced > click on Alt-Win key behavior > choose
> the meta key choice you prefer in that list.

That appears to be a rather distro-customized path.

AFAIK by default it'd be the kickoff application launcher, computer tab, 
system settings (tho as I generally point out, with a few exceptions the 
settings found there have little to do with the system in general, but 
are in reality user specific settings, most of which are additionally 
specific to kde, and for the exceptions, it's still the kde-specific 
method for configuring them, so the kde3 name kcontrol was FAR more 
accurate).

Then once in kcontrol/system-settings, it's hardware...  After that the 
path is the same, keyboard, advanced tab, alt/win key behavior...


That lets you configure the ctrl/alt/win key, but there's another 
alternative as well, handy if your keyboard doesn't physically have that 
key in the first place, but equally useful if you simply prefer to use a 
combination other than the default.

And since the window-to-screen shortcuts aren't enabled by default, a 
stop here appears to be necessary in any case.

Again in kcontrol/system-settings, but under common appearance and 
behavior, shortcuts and gestures, global keyboard shortcuts, choose the 
kwin component from the dropdown.  Near the bottom of the list (most 
likely after scrolling) can be found the shortcuts in question, window 
to...  Note that you can send it to "Desktop" N or to "Screen" N.  The 
original request specified monitor to monitor on the same desktop, which 
is indeed "screen", and that's an available option.

>> Also, in a related way, is there a way to have KDE always place apps on
>> Screen 1 and then I move them vs having a new app show up on the screen
>> that has the most recent focus?

I believe so, yes, tho I've never actually used that functionality as 
while I do have multi-monitor, I prefer that new windows always appear on 
the monitor/screen with the mouse, which is the way I have it set.  Let's 
see if I can remember/find where I saw the options I believe control 
this... yes...

kcontrol, workspace appearance and behavior, window behavior, window 
behavior, focus tab.  Take a look at the separate screen focus and active 
screen follows mouse options.  Looking at their help descriptions and 
again at your request, it doesn't appear that they fit your /exact/ 
request, but perhaps with a bit of experimentation you can find an option 
that works for you, even if it's not exactly what you requested.

*BUT* I think I found what you're looking for in a different location...

Still in the window behavior "group", switch to window rules.  Setup a 
new and rather generic rule, not applying to a specific app, but to all 
of them.  On the window matching tab of the new rule dialog, set an 
appropriate name, and you probably want to limit the "Window types" to 
"Normal window", or at least unselect dock and desktop window types (and 
probably utility and dialog types as well, tho that's your decision... a 
bit of experimentation may be in order...).  But the rest of the options 
on that tab should probably remain "Unimportant".

Then on the size and position tab, check the screen option, apply 
initially, and make sure it's set to the screen number you want.

OK out of the dialog and hit apply, then try it and see if it does what 
you want.  Adjust accordingly.

If there's some windows you need to make exceptions for, you'll need to 
create new rules for them, limiting them appropriately on the window 
match tab where you left "unimportant" for the generic rule.  It used to 
be that rule order determined which rule got applied if they conflicted, 
but I'm not sure that's true any more.  You may have to modify your 
generic rule so that it does NOT apply to the exceptions, as well as 
setting up the exception rules.  Alternatively, if it's appropriate for 
the individual exception, you can set it to "force" instead of "apply 
initially" and that should override the generic "apply initially" rule.  
However, that'd mean you couldn't move the window from that screen, so it 
probably isn't appropriate to force in most cases.

Finally, since I know Mark is a gentooer, it's worth noting that the 
whole "screen" idea we're talking about is based on the xinerama 
abstraction.  Which means setting USE=-xinerama should turn it off and 
treat the whole desktop as a single xinerama screen.  Formerly, several 
kde components had the xinerama USE flag, but that appears to no longer 
be the case.  I was experimenting with the flag for a different reason 
(plasma related, FWIW, but the story's a bit long to explain here) the 
other day, however, and it seems the USE=xinerama flag that applies to 
qtgui now controls the option as applied at runtime for all of kde.  At 
least it controlled it for plasma and kwin.

So depending on the effect desired, it's possible to toggle USE=xinerama 
on for qtgui, and have both kwin and plasma be xinerama-aware, or toggle 
it off, and have them both treat the entire desktop as a single xinerama 
screen.  I left USE=xinerama for now, as I'd have to setup or adjust a 
bunch of window rules to get the effect I want in kwin if I turned it 
off, but setting USE=-xinerama for qtgui did have the expected effect in 
plasma, so if I eventually decide to go with the option I was looking at 
(a desktop much larger than the combined size of my monitors, with 
panning...) I now know how to get plasma to behave itself better in that 
case than it seems to otherwise, and I can setup appropriate window rules 
for kwin, to deal with it.  Thus my experiment was a success and I now 
know what the effect is on both kwin and plasma, even if turned xinerama 
support back on, for now.  That gave me the information I wanted, and I 
can continue developing the plan I have in mind, /in/ my mind, until such 
time as I decide I want to try actually deploying the whole thing as I'm 
designing it to work.  We'll see...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman