What is hijacking Konsole?

Duncan 1i5t5.duncan at cox.net
Mon Oct 31 04:17:09 GMT 2011


Dotan Cohen posted on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:33:13 +0200 as excerpted:

> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 22:58, Zorael <zorael at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Are you running xbindkeys? At least on *buntus, it's set up by default
>> to launch xterm on Ctrl+F.
>>
>> Quoth .xbindkeysrc;
>>> # set directly keycode (here control + f with my keyboard)
>>> "xterm"
>>>   c:41 + m:0x4
>>
>>
> Wow, you're right! Who is the genius who thought to hijack Ctrl-F,
> which is "Find" in almost every application!?!

So I was correct with the global-grab and non-kde theories! =:^)

But I was somewhat thrown off by the assumption that someone would have 
tested that keystroke in other apps, before posting a question about it 
that blamed the problem on konsole.  Still, while specific window global-
level-grabs (perhaps specific-window X-level is a better description 
here, since the grabs aren't really global, tho the would be if not 
limited to a specific window) are indeed possible, since they're less 
common, I was forced to assume that either that testing had NOT taken 
place, or a rather less common grab mode was being used, and my proposed 
tests reflected the fact that I wasn't sure of that assumption.  So it 
threw me off only slightly, and the test results would have confirmed the 
fallacy of that assumption, bringing us right back on course toward a 
trace-down.

As for "hijacking" Ctrl-f, while modern x86 keyboards generally have a 
meta/super/hyper/windows/linux key that due to its relatively recent 
invention, doesn't show up on so many app-level key-bindings, so it's a 
relatively safe key to use for global bindings, apps that don't assume it 
exists (or is configured correctly), as xbindkeys apparently doesn't, 
don't have the luxury of using that key for global bindings and thus 
avoiding the standard, often already bound, control/alt/shift modifier 
combos.

As a result there's bound to be conflicts when such bindings are global-
grabbed, and the author was forced to either ship with few if any global-
grabs active by default, or to assume that a user advanced enough to go 
looking for and installing a global-grab hotkey app, would also be 
advanced enough to look over the default grabs and deactivate or modify 
the ones that didn't suit his purposes.

It seems both his assumption, that anyone advanced enough to go looking 
for and install such an app would immediately check the config and modify 
it to their own purposes, and mine, that anyone trying to trace strange 
key behavior would test it in more than one app before posting, blaming 
it on a single app, were both incorrect.

Oh, well...

At least the problem was traced and corrected, tho.  That's the important 
bit! =:^)

-- 
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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