HUD should ignore ALT keypress when in (full screen) games

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄]

Games generally have no menus, and are often full screen anyway, so invoking the HUD with an ALT-key press is somewhat pointless. Combined with ALT being a common key used in games means the gaming experience is somewhat interrupted by the HUD.

Screenshot attached. I was playing a full screen game of MAME where ALT is one of the main keys. When I pressed ALT to kill an alien (or whatever) the HUD appeared and threw me out of the game to the desktop.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: unity 5.4.0-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-16.25-generic 3.2.6
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.91-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
Date: Sat Feb 18 11:01:02 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha amd64 (20120203)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Austin Holbrook (nxuul)]

With a bit of testing, I found while in a fullscreen SDL game, the HUD jumped in front of it, while in a GLX implementation of the same game, the HUD still appeared, but it did not appear in front of the application.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 806255, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Ingram (ingram87)]

Doesn't seem like a duplicate to me. Any full screen app gets knocked out to the desktop and HUD if you press the alt key, even if the alt key is used in the full screen app. In my case, it's Super Tux 2. ALT shoots fireballs, and now it launches HUD instead.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ingram, it's definitely bug 806255. The root cause is described here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/806255/comments/11

[Revolutionist (krum-savov)]

For playing DOTA2 I have to disable Alt shortcut globally which is annoying. I am ofcourse using latest Ubuntu 14.04 and Steam.
The main problem is that DOTA2 on linux DOESN'T RUN IN FULLSCREEN!!! It runs on something called "desktop friendly fullscreen".

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

I think the team is aiming to switch the keypress to Alt-SPACE for
16.04, which should also address this issue. The main blocker is that
they need to include window-management commands in the HUD (for
compatibility with the current common use of Alt-SPACE). The last I
heard the plan was to land the Alt-SPACE change for release and include
window management by the point release. Patches and comments welcome.

Mark

[Will Cooke (willcooke)]

Changes to HUD default keybindings is happening here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1551986