how to set keybinding in gnome?

how to set keybinding in gnome?

[Xah Lee]

installed ubuntu gnu/linux recently... have some questions about how
to set keybindings in it. This is pretty much my first time in Gnome.
Last time i ran linux is about 10 years ago.

The 2 GUI apps i explored from the system pref panel: “gnome-
keybinding-properties” and “gnome-keyboard-properties” don't seem to
be able to do what i want.

here's my questions.

• I want the Menu key (aka App key) to be Hyper. How to do that?

• In emacs 23 with -Q, the Menu key is execute-extended-command. I'm
not sure how it became that. Any idea? I want caps lock to be execute-
extended-command. Is that possible in X11+Gnome+emacs? or do i need
some other util?

• According to the keyboard layout display, Gnome says my Win key is
Super and Caps Lock is Hyper, but in emacs 23 -Q, emacs reports both
to be Hyper.

• How to change the Win key to Super or Hyper?

• Is it possible to define app-specific key macros? For example, i
want the substract (-) key on keypad to type Ctrl+w (close tap) in
Firefox, and the / and * keys to be 【Ctrl+PageUp】 (prev tab) and 【Ctrl
+PageDn】 (next tap). (i know this is possible by modding Firefox
config files, but i want general X11 mechanism because i need to do
this for other apps.)

• It seems gnome save key config files in 〔/home/ubuntu/.gconf/apps〕
and 〔/home/ubuntu/.gnome2〕, but there's bewildering number of files
there. Is there a documentation somewhere? (am interested at least for
the key config part generated by the gnome keybinding apps. The Help
documentation stops at grandma level. 「man gnome-keybinding-
properties」 doesn't return anything. Web search is a bit hard because
there's too much linux stuff and a lot are laymen questions and i'm
not familiar where to look.)

Also, are these gnome apps (gnome-keybinding-properties, gnome-
keyboard-properties) working on top of x11's xmodmap or something
independent? I don't see any X11 config file in my home dir at all.

Any tip appreciated. Thanks.

Xah

Re: how to set keybinding in gnome?

[Xah Lee]

On May 30, 7:10 am, Stefan Monnier <monn...@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> > * by default, the Menu key is execute-extended-command. Is that
> > default from GNU Emacs compiled for GNU/Linux, or some distro
> > downstream did that?
>
> IIRC this has been the default "for ever".
>
> > * i wondered bout how to set Win key and Menu key to one of Hyper or
> > Super, on linux. Is this completely external to emacs?
>
> Yes.
>
> >> If you want to go further, you can play around with xmodmap or read
> >> about XKB, or ask in an X11 or Gnome newsgroup/forum/bugtracker.
> > so i guess the gnome gui for key setting does ultimately rely on
> > xmodmap? Ok, i'll look for answer in those communities.
>
> No, it relies on XKB, IIUC.  It seems that xmodmap is kind of deprecated
> nowadays, tho I don't fully understand ho XKB and xmodmap are related.
>
>         Stefan

oh i see. i've been greatly out of the loop. XKB is great info, never
heard of before, but now a look at wikipedia seems i'll be quite busy
for days... probably months. Thanks!

 Xah