Using Super (Windows key) to open application menu is broken after update Xubuntu

Question

I had been rocking Xubuntu 22.04 with no issues when I made the decision to upgrade to 22.10 because it popped up a dialog recommending it. After updating, using my windows key to open the whisker menu stopped working.

Google searching gave lots of recommendations that I use the keyboard settings app to re-bind the key, which had the drawback that it opens the menu every time you used any shortcut which used the super key (e.g. win+r). This is not ideal, and so the recommendation then was that you had to install another application (xcape) to make it work the way that it used to work with just built-in software just prior to the update!

Answer 1

As stated in my "question" if you've recently updated your system and pressing the windows key on your keyboard (sometimes referred to as a "super" key in some applications) no longer opens your applications menu/drawer, consider resetting your shortcuts to defaults.

In Xubuntu 22.10, this was accomplished by doing the following:

1. From your application menu or whisker menu, open the keyboard settings. You may also launch it from the terminal using the command xfce4-keyboard-settings.
2. In the keyboard settings application select the Application Shortcuts tab.
3. Near the bottom right of the tab, click on the "Reset to Defaults" button.
4. It will show the following warning:

This will reset all shortcuts to their default values. Do you really want to do this?

5. Select Yes to reset all your shortcuts to their default values.

After performing these steps, my whisker menu now opens successfully using my windows key. Before you go running off to follow other instructions from elsewhere and installing programs, consider just resetting the settings.