Re: Stop alt-spacebar window menu

["Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 cornell edu>]

On 05/28/2009 11:51 AM, Bill Farmer wrote:

> The reason for wanting to capture the alt-spacebar combination is
> because the keyboard is being played as a musical instrument using the
> function keys on one side, and the control, alt, and spacebar on the
> other side. So, every time the user presses alt-spacebar, the app main
> window loses the keyboard focus, he has to put the keyboard down, and
> use the mouse to dismiss the menu, as the escape key doesn't return the
> focus to the app main window. See http://melodeon.googlecode.com.

Well, you have a couple choices:

1.  Come up with a better virtual keyboard layout that isn't likely to 
conflict with existing shortcuts.  (Or make the things likely to 
conflict configurable in your app.)

2.  Suggest that users disable conflicting key bindings or, if that's 
not possible, use a different WM that doesn't have a conflicting key 
binding (or is configurable).

Basically #1 is your only viable option.  #2 is going to make the 
majority of your potential users either say "huh, what's a window 
manager?  how do I change that?" and be completely confused, or say "no 
thanks, I can live without your app."

> I've looked at the keybindings, but can't work out how to remove this
> one. It's possible that it's in Gnome, I haven't got that far. Also I
> only want to change it for this application.

You can't.  The WM doesn't care what app is focused.  It'll eat the key 
regardless.

And besides, even if you do find a solution for GNOME, what about people 
who run KDE?  Xfce?  LXDE?  *box?  Ratpoison?  ......

        -brian