Ctrl + Alt + D / Ctrl + D somehow reversed

[jiawen]

On this recently installed 17.3 desktop, the functions for Ctrl + Alt + D / Ctrl + D are somehow reversed. When I'm in Firefox and I hit Ctrl + D to add a bookmark, the system instead shows the desktop; when I'm in Firefox and hit Ctrl + Alt + D, Firefox pops up its "Add bookmark" window. In other apps, Ctrl + Alt + D does nothing.

I don't think I've configured this anywhere; I can't see anything in the Keyboard Shortcuts menu that would indicate either behavior, and although I have an xmodmap file that loads on startup, there's nothing in there (so far as I can see) that would cause this behavior, either. Other key combinations are working as they should (e.g., Ctrl + Shift + N creates a new folder in Caja), though I don't know any other Ctrl + Alt + key combos except for Ctrl + Alt + backspace to kill X, and I don't want to try that unless I have to.

How do I get Ctrl + Alt + D and Ctrl + D back to their normal behavior? Thanks!

[Cosmo.]

ctrl-alt-d should usually do nothing at all. The default shortcut for showing the desktop is super-d (at least in Cinnamon; it may be different in Mate, I don't know). What does super-d do for you?

Create a new user account. Same behavior there?

[jiawen]

Super + D (either Super_L or Super_R) does nothing. I'll try creating a new account and reporting back.

[jiawen]

With a guest account, Ctrl + Alt + D does 'show desktop' and Ctrl + D does 'create bookmark', so the problem is somewhere in the settings for this account, but I don't know where. Any ideas what I should try?

[Cosmo.]

Your last finding confirmed my suspicion. As I already wrote, I use Cinnamon, so I am sorry, that I am not able to help you any further. So please wait for an knowledgeable Mate user.

[jiawen]

Thank you, Cosmo.

Anyone else have more insights?

[Minterator]

You can disable Ctrl+Alt+D in "Keyboard Shortcuts", or change it to whatever you want.

[jiawen]

How do I do that? I've been unable to find a list of what to put in the 'Command' line for various key combinations.

[Minterator]

Show desktop is already there under Window Management. Just click on it, press any key combo to change it or backspace to disable it. Or create new ones, commands lines are in the same format as those in the start menu, you can also test commands in Terminal.

[jiawen]

My Keyboard Shortcuts lists no category called Window Management, nor is there a specific command for 'Show Desktop' listed. The Help page does mention the Window Management section, though. What's going on? Is my install missing a package, or...?

[jiawen]

And now, Ctrl + Up or Ctrl + Down no longer switches search engine, but instead minimizes or maximizes windows. What is going on? Can anyone help, please?

[Monsta]

My Keyboard Shortcuts lists no category called Window Management, nor is there a specific command for 'Show Desktop' listed. The Help page does mention the Window Management section, though. What's going on? Is my install missing a package, or...?

Normally, the Window Management shortcuts section should look like this:



Try running the tool from the terminal and check if it gives any warning/error messages:

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mate-keybinding-properties

[jiawen]

Here's what running that gives:

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$ mate-keybinding-properties
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 14: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated. please move it to /home/<me>/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf manually
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/53-monospace-lcd-filter.conf", line 10: Having multiple values in <test> isn't supported and may not work as expected

Running it from the terminal still doesn't give any section called Window Management. I have Sound, Desktop, Accessibility and Custom Shortcuts, none of which contain anything about minimizing, showing the desktop or Ctrl + D.

Would that error actually cause that problem?

And thank you for responding, in any case!

[jiawen]

I've noticed that I can't type the tilde (~) character with my keyboard. When I type shift + ` , I instead get the 'cycle through open windows' menu usually accessed with alt + `. Alt + `, however, produces the same behavior, so I can't actually type a tilde with my keyboard. Other characters work just fine with shift: shift + 3 produces #, etc. Something is changing key behavior pretty weirdly in my system, and I can't figure out what it is.

I run an xmodmap, in order to stop Caps Lock into a vertical bar and a few other things, but none of it, so far as I can see, would reverse the functions of alt and ctrl, and certainly none of it would selectively do that. I also have a keyboard that's not actually listed in the keyboard configuration list, so I have a best-match there, but again, that shouldn't produce this behavior, should it?

I just tried checking dconf to see if that explained anything, but the mystery remains. dconf shows that my show-desktop command is indeed supposed to be ctrl+alt+d (even though that actually produces 'save bookmark' in Firefox and nothing elsewhere).

This combination of factors -- the selectively backwards use of Alt and Shift, the large number of variables involved, the fact that a bunch of configuration locations indicate everything should be functioning normally even though they aren't, the fact that there's no appropriate section of my Keyboard Shortcuts -- is both really confusing and really frustrating. Can anyone help, please?

[Monsta]

I just tried checking dconf to see if that explained anything, but the mystery remains. dconf shows that my show-desktop command is indeed supposed to be ctrl+alt+d (even though that actually produces 'save bookmark' in Firefox and nothing elsewhere).

Was that in Marco's settings schema? I just thought that you might have another window manager running instead of Marco...

[jiawen]

So far as I can tell, I am running Marco. When run

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marco --replace

in a terminal, my windows flash and the decorations quickly reset, as expected. That indicates Marco, yes?

[Monsta]

No, that means Marco just replaced the current window manager, whatever it was

You can use wm-detect or wmctrl -m commands to show the current window manager's name.