Clash between Emacs and i3's shortcuts

asked 2015-07-16 08:20:03 +0000

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Hi all,

I have been looking around for a while but I really dont find any solution to this problem:

I just installed i3 on a Debian-based distribution. It works well as I was exepecting it (I already use i3 on another computer on Ubuntu).

But now, even if i declared fullscreen shortcut to be $mod+f (mod is Win key for me), when I type Ctrl-f my window toggles with fullscreen/tiled mode ! I am sure there is absolutely no shortcut using "Ctrl" in my configuration (~/.i3/config). The problem is: Ctrl-f is a common keyword in Emacs (go forward).

I tried to add "bindsym Ctrl+f nop" so I do not have the fullscreen toggling anymore but I still do not have Emacs "forward" shortcut.

Is there anyway to force to disable this shortcut only in i3 ? Where could I find the definition of this shortcut to delete the line ?

Thank you for helping me !

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answered 2015-07-16 09:38:12 +0000

Adaephon
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Ctrl is not a valid modifier name. The correct name would be Control. So if it is already in your configuration, you would have to look for Control+f. Note that i3 looks in several places for configuration files and takes the first (and only the first) it finds:

~/.config/i3/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/i3/config if set)
/etc/xdg/i3/config (or $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/i3/config if set)
~/.i3/config
/etc/i3/config

i3 grabs only shortcuts that are defined in its configuration. The only way to get i3 to ignore a shortcut is to not put it into the configuration. If it is not in your configuration, then i3 is not responsible for putting the window on fullscreen.

I can think of two likely causes for the issue:

The application itself has a Control+f as shortcut for fullscreen. (You did not say if it affects all windows or if you run emacs inside a terminal)
Some other program grabs global shortcuts, maybe a shortcut utility (hotkeys, keylaunche, etc.) or a settings manager from a desktop environment (e.g. gnome-settings-daemon or something similar)

The workaround you tried will not work (or only partially):

 bindsym Control+f nop

While this would (hopefully) lead to i3 grabbing the shortcut Control+f and i3 would do nothing, i3 also would not pass it along to any other application. So Control+f would still not work in Emacs.

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answered 2015-07-16 12:13:57 +0000

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >100 is welcome to improve it.

Ctrl is not a valid modifier name. The correct name would be Control.

Sorry for the mistake but no lines with Control Neither.

The application itself has a Control+f as shortcut for fullscreen. (You did not say if it affects all windows or if you run emacs inside a terminal)

I've already looked to that part of the documentation and I know the file I am looking for (number 3) is the one which is parsed by i3 (1 and 2 do not exist, 4 uses Mod1-Alt exclusively and I use Mod4-Win).

The application itself has a Control+f as shortcut for fullscreen. (You did not say if it affects all windows or if you run emacs inside a terminal)

I run Emacs inside a terminal so Control+f should not be a shortcut for fullscreen. The other binaries are also sensible to the Control+f shortcut (and toggle fullscreen). Exception with Konqueror in which Control+f launches the search engine. May be this is a clue ? :)

Some other program grabs global shortcuts, maybe a shortcut utility (hotkeys, keylaunche, etc.) or a settings manager from a desktop environment (e.g. gnome-settings-daemon or something similar)

I am going to try figure it out...

Edit: Sorry for the mistake, after a while I figured out Konsole had some local shortcuts (I obviously edited thoses but I do not remember...) so under KDE I opened a Konsole, then Configuration > Shortcuts configuration. Thanks anyway for the tips !

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