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I am using Gnome in Ubuntu 11.04. I work a lot in Emacs, and I find that the Gnome window manager grabs some of the Emacs keys. To some extent, I can stop this by laboriously going through each of System->Preferences->Keyboard shortcuts and disabling the offending keys. However it would be nice to do this once for everything. In addition, my latest problem is with org-mode, M-S-up should be org-shiftmetaup (org-move-subtree-up) but the window manager is grabbing that key combination and making shrunken windows. However, I cannot find that in the Keyboard Shortcuts list; I don't use it and have no idea what they call it (and it doesn't seem you can look up/edit the short cuts by key combination, only by name).

So my questions are:

  1. Is there one Gnome configuration change I can make that will by default disable all keyboard short cuts?
  2. Is there then a way to re-enable some of them? (I don't use them much, but might want a couple that don't conflict with Emacs.)
  3. Failing that, is there a way to disable shortcuts that conflict with Emacs, for instance by moving Meta to the Super key for Gnome only and not emacs?
  4. Short of 3, is there a way to find a shortcut by the key combination so it can be disabled individually?
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Are you using compiz+unity, compiz (ubuntu classic) or metacity (ubuntu classic without effects)? –  enzotib Sep 24 '11 at 16:54
Ubuntu classic (not unity), I think I do have the effects. –  Liam Sep 24 '11 at 18:05

1 Answer 1

Move the Meta key to the Windows keys in your keyboard settings (“Keyboard Preferences → Layouts → Options → Alt/Win key behavior → Meta is mapped to Win keys”. The window manager will still use Alt, and Emacs will use Meta.

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Just tried it, and it doesn't make any difference for me. The ungrabbed Alt key still behaves as meta, and Emacs thinks I'm pressing super when I press the win key. I can see this being a solution if it worked, but it would be a bit better if I could change Gnome's behavior rather than Emacs', since I use Emacs Meta all the time, and Gnome's Alt just about never. In fact disabling all window manager keyboard shortcuts would probably work well for me. –  Liam Sep 25 '11 at 2:52
@Liam: You'll have to restart Emacs after making the change. –  Teddy Sep 25 '11 at 3:03
OK thanks. I tried it and it's not really what I was looking for. My title is "Gnome stop grabbing my emacs keys" not "Emacs stop having your keys grabbed by Gnome". Does one of those keyboard mapping options (there are a lot) move Gnome's Alt to the win key, and leave meta on Alt? –  Liam Sep 28 '11 at 2:36

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