Key Bindings and Edge Bindings

Want to quickly disable your laptop’s touchpad? Then set up a key binding. Or easily switch between desktops? Use an edge binding. Key bindings specify the actions that occur when you press a key combination (i.e. they bind the action to that key combination); edge bindings control what happens when you click an edge or a corner of the screen. Use them to make your life that little bit easier, or to perform an action that would be impossible by any other means. And the good news is that it’s really easy to set these up by simply choosing an action at the Key or Edge Bindings Settings dialog box.

The Key Bindings Settings dialog box

To open the dialog box shown below, go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel > Input > Key Bindings. The left ‘Key Bindings’ pane lists the (large) number of key bindings that have been set by default, the ‘Action’ pane on the right lists the (huge) number of possible actions. One of the default key bindings is Shift+F10, to maximize a window vertically, and it’s a good idea to press this when you open this dialog box to see more of what’s on offer.

As you will see if you examine the contents of the dialog box, a large number of key bindings have been set by default. These are listed in the table at the end of this article. You can change any of these, and you can add others.

Creating your own key bindings

Notice that hardly any Win key combinations (i.e. the Windows key pressed in combination with another key) have been used for the default bindings. This leaves them free for your own use.

For example, suppose you have upgraded from one version to the next, but wish to continue using the previous version’s binding (Win+Space) to open Quick Launcher. The procedure is:

1. Click the ‘Add’ button.
2. Press the key combination you wish to use (Win+Space).
3. Select ‘Show Quick Launcher’ (about one-third of the way down the Action pane).
4. Click Apply.

You don’t have to restrict yourself to Win key combinations, of course. If you inspect the list of key bindings at the end of this article you will see that Alt+Space is unused, and so you might bind this to the action ‘Launch Settings Panel’ (about half-way down the Action pane).

A key binding to disable your laptop’s touchpad must execute the appropriate command. To set this up, click the ‘Add’ button at the dialog box above (Step 1), press your desired key combination (Step 2), then select ‘Command’ (in the ‘Launch’ section about half-way down the Action pane). Then, in the Action Parameters box at the foot of this pane, replace the contents (some example syntax) with
“synclient TouchpadOff=1″ (no quotes) and click Apply.

If you want to set up another key binding to re-enable the touchpad, the command to insert in the Action Params box is:
“synclient TouchPadOff=0″

The Edge Bindings Settings dialog box

To open this dialog box, go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel > Input > Edge Bindings. It is similar to the Key Bindings dialog box shown above, with the same Action Pane contents at the right, but edge bindings listed at the left. By default no edge bindings have been set, so the left pane is empty. You can set up to eight edge bindings – one for each edge and one for each corner.

Suppose you wish to set up a binding to show the desktop (i.e. minimize all open windows) when you click the bottom right corner of the screen. The steps to accomplish this are similar to those for key bindings:

1. Click the Add button. This opens the Edge Binding Sequence dialog box shown below.
2. Click the edge or corner that wish to use for your binding, select the ‘Clickable Edge’ option, and click Apply. You are returned to the Settings dialog box.
3. Select ‘Show The Desktop’ (near the top of the Action pane).
4. Click Apply.

If you make use of virtual desktops, you might set a left-edge click to cycle left through the desktops, and a right-edge click to cycle to the right. The Action you should select in this case is ‘Flip Desktop Linearly…’, with ‘-1’ entered in the Action Params box for a left flip, and ‘1’ for a right flip.

Default key bindings

The table below shows the key bindings that have been set-up by default in Moksha.