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Xiè Jìléi
Asked: 2011-01-05 18:14:17 +0800 CST

How to stop Mod4-P from switching the display?

  • 772

I use Ctrl-P very frequently to scroll backward in the command history, but I often mistype it as Mod4-P, which is bound to the switch display function.

I've searched around Keyboard shortcuts and CompizConfig, etc., but I couldn't find where Mod4-P is bound. What controls that?

gnome

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Disregard my other answer, it's incorrect.

    There are laptops out there that have a physical button for video output switching hardcoded to send Win+p. This is why Ubuntu now interpets Win+p as a video output switching key.

    This is hardcoded in gnome-settings-daemon and can be disabled in gconf by setting

    /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/xrandr/active

    to false. This workaround probably has a nasty side effect of breaking your real video switch key, if you have one.

    P.S. This feature is added via an Ubuntu-specific debian/45_support_new_video_key.patch, but upstream gnome-settings daemon will do the same thing in a different gnome-settings-daemon plugin (media-keys). It is therefore likely that this gconf workaround will stop working in Natty.

    P.P.S. There's an open bug claiming that stealing Win+p this way is not nice for people who have sane hardware and want to use it for something else.

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  2. Ubuntu 14.04 simply:

    dconf write /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/active false

    At the command line :)

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  3. Install compizconfig-settings-manager, run it, press Advanced Search >, enable the checkbox for searching in setting values, and do a search for <Super>p (and <Mod4>p, just in case -- both spellings appear to work).

    On my machine I find that <Super>p is bound by two disabled plugins: ADD Helper and Shelf.

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  4. For newer versions of Ubuntu, dconf is used (instead of gconf) for changing the gnome-settings-daemon setting: see this question.

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  5. On Ubuntu Quantal

    Find all bindings to Super-p

    gconftool-2 -R /apps | grep "<Super>p"
gconftool-2 -R /system | grep "<Super>p"

    Unbind them

    gconftool-2 -s /apps/compiz-1/plugins/shelf/screen0/options/triggerscreen_key "" --type String
gconftool-2 -s /apps/compiz-1/plugins/addhelper/screen0/options/toggle_key "" --type String
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