How to override some key bindings using Quickly

This is how you'd modify the global keybindings managed by Compiz. However, this would only work for systems using compiz as the window manager. It requires the python-compizconfig module. BTW, the default for close window is ALT+F4, it's the general settings plugin.

Here's how you could do it programmatically:

import compizconfig
context=compizconfig.Context()
commandplugin=context.Plugins['core']
c0=commandplugin.Screen['close_window_key']
defaultkey=c0.Value  # store the oldkey so you can put it back at the end
c0.Value='' # Unset the key
context.Write()   #Note that sometimes you have to pass False to get it to update settings

Note that to get many of the settings you can use the keys() function to list them (i.e.) context.Plugins.keys() as they are mostly just modified dictionaries.

Here's a link to code that helped me figure out how this works, since I can't find any documentation: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/precise/compizconfig-python/precise/view/head:/src/compizconfig.pyx

What might actually be better, is to capture the destroy or delete-event signal sent to the window and test to see if it actually originated with a keypress. I wrote some code and was able to test for the keypress, but even though I can prevent the Gtk.main loop from being terminated, I can't prevent the window from being destroyed. Maybe someone else has an idea about that.

Edit: Here's my code that works correctly, but is there a better way to test for the key combo in the quit_test function?

Edit2: Modified to test for modifier keys and F4 correctly, but this DOES NOT work?! It will work for if I make it test for Gdk.ModifierType.CONTROL_MASK, but MOD1 which should be the Alt key doesn't work.

#!/usr/bin/python

from gi.repository import Gtk
keypress=True
def quit_test(widget, data):
    global keypress
    print "destroying"

    if keypress:
        keypress=False
        return True
    else:
        Gtk.main_quit()
        widget.destroy()

def handle_keys(widget,event):
    global keypress
    modifiers=Gtk.accelerator_get_default_mod_mask() 
    for mod in dir(Gdk.ModifierType): #just printing what the modifier is
        if (event.state&modifiers) == getattr(Gdk.ModifierType,mod): print mod
    if event.keyval==Gdk.KEY_F4 and (event.state&modifiers)==Gdk.ModifierType.MOD1_MASK:
        keypress=True
    print event.keyval, keypress

win=Gtk.Window()
win.connect('delete-event', quit_test)
win.connect('key-press-event', handle_keys)
label=Gtk.Label("just some text")
win.add(label)
win.show_all()
Gtk.main()