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Paulo Marcel Coelho Aragão
Asked: 2017-10-21 08:52:05 +0800 CST

Xubuntu 17.10 (and later): cannot change xfce4-terminal keyboard shortcuts

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I've just installed xubuntu 17.10 and cannot change xfce4-terminal keyboard shortcuts. I tried enabling editable accelerators (according to http://docs.xfce.org/faq), running:

Appearance -> Settings -> Menus and Buttons -> Enable editable accelerators: Tick

but when I hover the mouse over any menu item and press any key combination, nothing happens; I can see all shortcuts are greyed out, indicating that they can't be changed. I closed/reopened xfce4-terminal, and also logged out/in from the xfce session, to no avail, still can't change the shortcuts.

Don't know what changed in xfce because I remember being able to do this in past versions. I'm running fresh xubuntu 17.10, so xfce is version 4.12.3 and xfce4-terminal is 0.8.6-0ubuntu1.

Would anybody know how to change them ?

EDIT: I've just discovered that they can be changed editing:

~/.config/xfce4/terminal/accels.scm

Remove the leading ; from the menu entry and edit the shortcut. xfce4-terminal has to be closed/reopened for the new shortcuts to take effect. Not sure if this is the standard way of doing it, but at least it works.

EDIT 2: Found a good explanation about it here

xubuntu

2 Answers

  1. As the solution was present in the question and in comments (along with contradictory statements) I will post an answer to make it more clear.

    As said under Xfce bug report #12861 — "editable accelerators no more working in xfce4-terminal after GTK+3 migration":

    gtk3 does not support editable accelerators. Since xfce4-terminal is a gtk3 app, this feature isn't available anymore...

    That affects all later Xubuntu versions, not just 17.10.

    accelerators can be changed via ~/.config/xfce4/terminal/accels.scm

    While editing that file, as the OP said in the question, you have to remove the lead (the ; part at the beginning of the line); example for Ctrl-C for copy and Ctrl-V for paste:

    (gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/terminal-window/paste" "<Primary>v")
(gtk_accel_path "<Actions>/terminal-window/copy" "<Primary>c")
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  2. It would seem, every few years, a question peeks from rears; regarding or just relating to the xfce4-terminal shortcut-buttons.. For this year, I might as well volunteer to bring you: Looking For Answers: Where To Look For those KEY-BUTTON-PRESS-IDENTIFIERS-CODES that the xfce4-terminal would recognize in the aforementioned document to mean specific buttons,--in this case; those not already found in said document.. (especially including, but not limited to: the arrow-keys, & Tab[ulator]) -Also, it casts doubt that: https://docs.xfce.org/faq#how_to_configure_shortcutshotkeysmenu_accelerators does offer quite comprehensive way to get the Keycodes, but what is the doubt casting part, is how the accels.scm calls f.ex. the Control[R]-key just <Primary> -so I'm hesitant to try to troubleshoot my way to getting those shortcuts customized and working, if I am unable to even trust the premise that my keycodes match.

    PS: If you're going to be THAT person and suggest looking for the answer myself first.. [Well, first of all; How do you think I got here] Tho' do not spend your ~brain cells~ pondering that, but be of use, and do at least enlighten us; what would be the either official, or at least colloquially known // widely recognized-term for the title to use in order to search those type of key-identifier/-code/-titles that the xfce4-terminal then recognizes to mean; f.ex: Any of the Arrow-keys, and like the Tab-key..

    PPS:I do see that one this page, the consensus, or at the least the opinion of some, is that the shortcuts do not follow the accels.scm -doc-map.. But I'm not here to debate that, just checking if any of you have any answers...

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