Kwin shortcuts not working

[Duncan]

Dotan Cohen posted on Sun, 10 Mar 2013 11:55:46 +0200 as excerpted:

> Alt-F4 (close window) and Alt-F2 are no longer working on a Kubuntu
> 12.10 install. No KDE configuration settings had been changed around the
> time that the shortcuts broke, and I can see that Alt-F4 is still
> configured as the close window shortcut in System Settings. Furthermore,
> some custom shortcuts such as show analogue clock widget (calandar) on
> Alt-Space still do work.
> 
> What might be the issue, or how should I start troubleshooting?

In general, it's worth noting that kde has several keyboard shortcut 
configuring and consuming components.  kwin, being a window manager, 
should see all keyboard activity before it gets passed to anything else 
(if kwin doesn't consume it), so should consume its own shortcuts.  After 
that, AFAIK the general global hotkeys component (which with kde3 was a 
running khotkeys which I don't see with kde4, so I'm not sure which 
running process actually handles it now) is next in the queue, followed 
by passing anything remaining down to the individual apps, which will 
grab their local hotkeys, then process whatever remains as they normally 
would, dumping it into whatever widget has focus, usually.

So the fact that plasma's hotkeys still work even after kwin's hotkeys 
quit working shouldn't be surprising, since they're processed by 
different kde components.  Since I don't tend to use plasma global hotkeys 
much, I'm not sure whether the clock hotkey is global (will still trigger 
if another app has the focus) or local (will only trigger if plasma has 
focus) or not, but either way, it's almost certainly a different 
component processing that trigger than kwin, which being the window 
manager, gets first pick of the keystream before anything else even sees 
it.



Meanwhile...

Kubuntu 12.10 doesn't tell me (as a gentooer, not a kubuntuer) what kde 
version you're running, but the date-based-version strongly suggests that 
it's older than the current 4.10.1 I'm now running, or even 4.10.0 (which 
was out in 13.02 using the same date-scheme).

However, I did note a bit of weirdness in keyboard shortcuts in 4.10.x 
(4.10.0 I think, having run the betas and rcs if it's not a current 
problem they blur together a bit).  Whether it's fixed in 4.10.1 I can't 
say, as I was able to fix it locally by then.  Maybe you're seeing 
something similar, with an earlier version?

In my case, the issue was associated with a kwin (aka desktop) effect 
which I had temporarily deactivated when I had a temporary issue with 
OpenGL.  When that was fixed and I tried to turn the effect back on, the 
hotkeys were messed up, and trying to reassign them in the effect 
properties from the middle tab of desktop effects didn't work.

What I found DID work was reassigning them via the global hotkeys applet, 
kwin component.  This can be found in kde settings (aka system settings, 
except this is kde settings applying only to kde and to this user, NOT a 
system setting applying globally to the entire system, all users, inside 
and outside kde), common appearance and behavior, shortcuts and gestures, 
global keyboard shortcuts.  Select kwin as the kde component from the 
dropdown.

Resetting the kwin hotkey I needed to reset there worked, while 
attempting to do it thru desktop effects did NOT work, for me.

(FWIW, the effect in question here was the zoom effect, zooming in/out/
normal size, vs moving left/right/up/down while zoomed.  I use the meta-
arrow keys for both, with control as well for zooming, without it for 
moving while zoomed, and those hotkeys quit working.  But all my other 
hotkeys including all other kwin and kwin effect hotkeys seemed to work 
fine.  I don't know why it was just the zoom keys affected, but resetting 
it in global keyboard shortcuts worked, while attempting to set it in the 
zoom effect config dialog didn't work at all.)

If you're lucky, the same thing will work for you.  Try resetting the 
hotkey using global keyboard shortcuts instead of wherever else you might 
have been trying to set it (you didn't say, except that it was in kde 
settings), and hopefully it'll work.


One other thing to note.  Normally, kded should pick up config changes 
and apply them across kde immediately.  However, one other thing I 
noticed recently (with plasma in my case), was that a config change I 
made didn't take effect immediately -- only after I restarted kde.  I'm 
not sure if kded had aborted and therefore was no longer running in 
ordered to pass on the config changes, or if it was another problem, and 
it only happened the once so I had no chance for further troubleshooting, 
but if you're changing settings and they don't appear to take, do try 
restarting kde (either logout and back in if you're running a *dm GUI 
login, or quit kde/X and restart with startx or whatever, if starting it 
from a CLI login).  While that's normally not needed, sometimes kded 
apparently gets stuck and a full kde restart is needed in ordered to 
apply changes.

-- 
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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