A standard for global/desktop environment shortcuts to prevent conflicts with Linux apps

[Simon McVittie]

On Wed, 06 May 2020 at 17:37:23 -0400, rhkramer at gmail.com wrote:
> <ctrl>  <win*> <alt> <spacebar> <alt> <win*> <command*> <ctrl>

We already have formalized vocabularies for talking about these keys, for
example in xkb and in the Linux kernel, so let's not invent new ones...

> win* is a key with no letters but what looks like the Windows logo

The Windows logo keys are normally mapped to XKB_KEY_Super_L and
XKB_KEY_Super_R, or as a modifier, XKB_MOD_NAME_LOGO ("Mod4"). They
are two of the three keys added in the transition from 101-key (USA)
and 102-key (international) PC keyboards to 104- and 105-key equivalents
("Windows 95 keyboards").

The Command key (⌘ symbol) on Apple keyboards is also mapped to Super,
although it has a different physical location (between Alt/Option and
the spacebar).

The proposal is that the Super/Mod4 keys (aka Windows logo or Command)
should be reserved for desktop environment shortcuts. GNOME 3 mostly
already does this. For example, in older versions of GNOME you could
use Alt+left-click+drag to move a window by "holding" any part of the
window, but in GNOME 3 the equivalent is Super+left-click+drag. GNOME
also has Super+Tab as an alternative to the traditional Alt+Tab for
switching between apps (although Alt+Tab still works to avoid breaking
user expectations).

> command* is a key with no letters but a logo that might be intended to depict 
> a menu

Please don't call this "command", because that's the ⌘ key on Apple
keyboards, which is analogous to the Windows logo key on Windows-oriented
keyboards. It's XKB_KEY_Menu or "the Menu key", and is the third key
that was added at the same time as the Windows logo keys. It typically
opens the same context menu that you'd get by right-clicking.

    smcv