2

I recently switched from Unity desktop to LXDE desktop (it's easy to install in Ubuntu with sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop.)

That's all good, but I'm irritated by a few keyboard and mouse shortcuts that are slightly different in LXDE vs Unity. These are:

| Action:                          | In Unity:             | In LXDE:          |
|----------------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------|
| Navigate workspaces              | Ctrl-Alt-Arrow        | Ctrl-Alt-Arrow    |
| Navigate and take focused window | Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Arrow  | Alt-Shift-Arrow ! |
| Mouse-drag to move a Window      | Alt-LeftButton        | Alt-LeftButton    |
| Mouse-drag to resize a Window    | Alt-MiddleButton      | Alt-RightButton ! |
+----------------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------+

You can see how some of the actions have the same shortcut, while others have a different shortcut (!), which is just irritating.

Since I'm moving from Unity to LXDE, I'd like to change the LXDE shortcuts to match Unity.

1 Answer 1

2

In LXDE (which runs OpenBox), edit your ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml to change the above actions.

Note: After changing the openbox config xml file, you'll have to reconfigure openbox by running: openbox --reconfigure

For the window / workspace action:

We want to change the Shift-Alt-[ArrowKey] keyboard actions to Ctrl-Shift-Alt-[ArrowKey] to match Unity.

In the <keyboard> section of the xml file, find the keybindings with the SendToDesktop actions. These are bound to S-A-Left (shift-alt-left), right, up, and down. Change the bindings to C-S-A-Left (crel-shift-alt-left), right, up, and down. e.g.

<keybind key="C-S-A-Left">
  <action name="SendToDesktop">
    <to>left</to>
    <wrap>no</wrap>
  </action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="C-S-A-Right">
  <action name="SendToDesktop">
    <to>right</to>
    <wrap>no</wrap>
  </action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="C-S-A-Up">
  <action name="SendToDesktop">
    <to>up</to>
    <wrap>no</wrap>
  </action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="C-S-A-Down">
  <action name="SendToDesktop">
    <to>down</to>
    <wrap>no</wrap>
  </action>
</keybind>

For the mouse / window-resize action:

We want to change the mouse's middle click-drag-on-window action to resize (to match Unity).

In the <mouse> section, under the <context name="Frame"> section of the xml file, find the mouse drag bindings for the Middle buttons, and change it to:

  <mousebind button="A-Middle" action="Press">
    <action name="Resize"/>
  </mousebind>

You can change the name="A-Right" action="Drag" setting if you like - it is setup as the above.

Bonus #1: Shift print-screen to capture an area

I don't recall if this is in Unity by default, but I really love Shift-Print to select and capture an area of the screen with the mouse. I also like using the program Shutter to accomplish this. Here's a keybinding for that (place in the <keyboard> section of the xml file.)

<keybind key="S-Print">
  <action name="Execute">
    <command>shutter -s</command>
  </action>
</keybind>

Bonus #2: If you're interested in making the LXDE workspaces into a grid, see this answer.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .