Can not get Hotkeys to work after update to KDE4

[Duncan]

Dan Johansson posted on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:56:03 +0200 as excerpted:

> After updating from KDE3.5 to KDE4.3.1 I can not get my Hotkeys to work.
> For example the following the following two Hotkeys 

> 1) I want the <PrintScreen> button to start ksnapshot and I activated
> the Printscreen action in
> System Settings -> Input Actions -> Preset Action -> Printscreen.

> 2) I want to start dolphin when I press Win+E, and have defined an
> action in
> System Settings -> Input Actions -> DJ -> Dolphin when pressing Win+E
> 
> But non of these works. Nothings happens when I press the keys.
> 
> Here is some output from xev when pressing PrintScreen and then Win+E

[snip xev output... the keys are indeed sensed correctly]

Hotkeys in kde4 are a bit of a mess.  First, the upgrade doesn't seem to 
go quite right, leaving actions that appear to be registered but don't 
work as they should (or at least that was the case here, and seems to be 
what happened to you as well).  Second and the big issue for me,
multi-key hotkeys (such as: Win-X, E, aka Meta-E or for those with 
internet/multimedia keyboards with lots of "extra" keys, XF86WWW, E)  
don't work in kde4 (but simple modifier plus normal key should work, so 
for instance, Win-E, aka Meta-E).

That said, the keys you mention /should/ work.  It's just that the 
configuration is a bit unintuitive, now, especially with the migrated 
keys that don't migrate...

Here's what I had to do.  If you have a whole list of key settings, you 
may wish to write them down elsewhere (on paper or in a normal text file 
or something) to reenter, later.  Then all those preset actions... those 
are the migrations from kde3 that don't seem to work at all, or at least 
they didn't, here.  Delete them.  (If you wish, you can try unchecking 
the preset actions checkbox, hitting OK, restarting kde just to be sure, 
and checking it again then hitting OK, and restarting kde again, but that 
didn't seem to do much here, altho that may be because many of mine were 
multi-key, which as I said, don't work correctly in kde4 anyway.  I ended 
up just deleting that whole set.)

Now, under keyboard and mouse, there's two separate sets of keyboard 
actions configuration.  It's a bit hard to keep the three different 
locations straight, but Standard Keyboard Shortcuts are the default per-
application settings.  Thus, if you change a setting here, it'll change 
it in any kde app that has that action.  That's /not/ the one we want.

The other settings applet is Global keyboard shortcuts.  These are 
actions that sort of apply to a single app, but they'll be sensed and 
applied regardless of what app you happen to be in when you use the 
shortcut.  This is where we want to set things up, and/or check and 
perhaps remove some shortcuts.

In Global keyboard shortcuts, under kwin, there's two settings of 
interest, Window Screenshot to Clipboard (which defaults to alt-print, 
but that's not particularly suitable, since alt activates the SysRq key 
on most x86 style keyboards, so alt-print never happens, because it's 
SysRq instead), and Desktop screenshot to clipboard (which defaults to 
Ctrl-Printscrn).  Depending on your preferences, these two MAY be 
sufficient for you, such that you don't need ksnapshot after all.  If you 
want ksnapshot, you'll set that elsewhere, and will probably want to 
delete these two default entries.  If these suffice, you'll probably want 
to change the Window screenshot to clipboard to something else, I used 
meta-print (aka win-print), for the reasons outlined above.  Note that I 
don't have anything assigned to simply print, as I want it a bit less 
easy to trigger by accident than that, but YMMV.

Once you get that set to your preferences and applied/OKed, you can move 
on to setting the app trigger keys.  There's two ways you can do this.  
One is to set them up basically manually, as direct Input Actions.  The 
second is to set them up as shortcuts to the applications as they appear 
in kickoff/kmenu/lancelot.

We'll take the second way first.  Right click on the menu (kmenu/lancelot/
kickoff/whatever) icon and select Menu Editor.  Find the application 
entry you wish to have a shortcut, click on the advanced tab, and set the 
shortcut key as appropriate.  If you want to setup shortcuts for multiple 
apps, you can do so.  Of course you can make more major changes to your 
menu here if desired as well, adding entries, moving them around, etc.  
When you are done, don't forget to hit Save, to apply your changes.

Now, back to Input Actions in system settings.  This is the one you were 
in first, NOT either of the keyboard shortcut applets.  You should have a 
kmenuedit entry there now.  Make sure it's checked to activate.  You can 
expand the list and activate/deactivate individual entries as well, if 
you like.  Hit OK.  At this point it's probably a good idea to restart 
kde again, just to be sure the settings take.

The other alternative is to setup the app triggers as direct input 
actions.  This you'd do in Input Actions.  I'd suggest creating your own 
group, labeled with your initials or something, so kde doesn't try to 
mess with it in future upgrades and you know it's your customized 
actions.  Make sure it's enabled.  Right click on it and choose new, 
global shortcut, command/url.  Type in the name of the action, probably 
the name of the program you wish to start.  The trigger tab should be 
active.  Add the shortcut you want.  Click on the action tab, and enter 
the name of the command you wish to launch, along with any additional 
parameters.  If you wish, you can add a comment on that tab, as well.  
Repeat this for additonal actions as necessary.  When you are done, don't 
forget to apply the changes.

Whichever application trigger method you chose, kmenuedit or manual 
entry, you can set Win-E for Dolphin.  Whether you set PrintScr for 
ksnapshot or use the kwin desktop and window screenshot to clipboard 
functions is up to you, but if you chose the ksnapshot way, once you 
disabled the kwin global shortcuts if desired, you'd set the ksnapshot 
launcher trigger just as you would any other launcher trigger, using 
either the kmenuedit or manual entry method described above.

-- 
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

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