[compiz] - Can't unconfigure ALT-F2 in Gusty

[Christian Holtje]

Binary package hint: compiz

Hello!

I upgraded to gusty on my laptop. I sudden discovered that Compiz was running as my window manager. Which is nice, except that I can't configure the keyboard. System->Preferences->Keyboard is set the way I want it to be, but Compiz doesn't honor it.

The one that's bugging me is Alt-F2 does the "Popup Launch a Program" dialog, because I never use that and usually have it configured to something else.

I don't see any compiz config program on my system, but that'd be an 'advanced user' behaviour. Normal users wouldn't use locate to find compize config anyway.

Ciao!

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

This seems to be mostly a issue with alt-f2 or have you seen a similar behavior with other keys as well?

I'm a bit puzzled that you got compiz after your upgrade by default, could you please send me your upgrade logs (/var/log/dist-upgrade/*) and the output of:
$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/default
$ gconftool --get /desktop/gnome/applications/window_manager/current

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I can reproduce the ALT-F2 problem. The problem seems to be that the integration code needs to update both the metacity and the gnome-panel (/apps/panel/global/run_key) gconf keys. Currently only the metacity one is updated.

[BenKochie (ben-nerp)]

This is more of a general config problem with compiz. On my system it is not enabled by default, but after it is enabled there is no way to change the behavior of some keys.

If I enable "Normal" under Visual Effects, it sets the Alt-F1 keybinding to "Show the panel menu".

If I change this keyboard shortcut to Disabled it will still assign Alt-F1 to open the menu.

[Christian Holtje (docwhat)]

Michael Vogt:

I had compiz from the beryl/compiz repository external to ubuntu. I switched to metacity before I upgraded because I didn't want to interfere with upgrade. I probably should have removed all the packages from the external repository.

Ciao!

[Christian Holtje (docwhat)]

The new compiz packages work if I install compizconfig-settings-mananger and use flat-file instead of GConf for the backend in preferences.

I had discovered that compiz was much more stable in the pre-gutsy builds when using the flat-file backend. It seems it is still true.

That is only a work-around, however...

Ciao!

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I just got confirmation that there are more issues here with the alt-f1 - alt-f4 bindings:

<Ng> I have alt-f1 through to alt-f4 configured in gnome's keyboard shortcuts to switch to desktops 1-4
 when I go into compiz they still do that, but also do show-main-menu, run-command, nothing and close-window
 so switching to desktop 4 is quite scary ;)

[Christian Holtje (docwhat)]

Michael Vogt:

Yeah, I forgot about that. I noticed it too...

Ciao!

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

 libcompizconfig-backend-gconf (0.5.2+git20071005-0ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low
 .
   * new 0.6 snapshot:
     - correctly handle disabled key bindings from gnome (LP: #140000)

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

This should be fixed now.

[Derek Chen-Becker (dchenbecker)]

Well, it looks like I have the fixed version (0.5.2+git20071010-0ubuntu1), but for some reason Alt-F3 continues to open the desktop search bar no matter what I do. Alt-F1, F2 and F4 correctly switch to workspaces 1, 2 and 4 respectively, but Alt-F3 just seems stubborn. I checked in the deskbard preferences and it's set to Alt-F12 (which works). I'm searching through gconf but so far I haven't found anything.

Thanks,

Derek

[BenKochie (ben-nerp)]

Unfortuantely, Alt-F3 is under control of the search bar. The only way to get it to release it is to right-click on the search bar and change the keybinding there. I might have given up and just disabled the search app. I am going to do some from-scratch testing.. but I think this bug needs to get pushed up-stream to force gnome apps to centralize keybinding preferences.