Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Welcome back to another issue of ‘command and conquer’. As many of you may know, I’m on the lookout for a distribution to suit my old potato laptops. I think I have decided on XFCE for the DE. XFCE is simple and very customizable, and it has some nifty keyboard shortcuts built in. Want to learn them? Then read on as we will cover them in this issue.
Though some distributions use CTRL+Esc for the menu, with Xubuntu, you can use just the “super” key. The one with the little black-and-white Danish / Swedish / Norwegian / Finnish flag on it. ;o) Some keyboards have a context menu key on the right, that’s the opposite side of the black-and-white flag, Stan, that you can use to bring up a context menu. However, if your keyboard does not have this key, you can use ALT+F1 to pop it into existence anywhere the mouse pointer is. However, this is not application specific, like a right-click, no matter what some may say. You can test this by right-clicking on the desktop and right-clicking in an application, then repeating it with the key press. ALT+F2 (or super + r) should launch your finder – basically the search in your whisker menu. ALT+3 should bring up the whole whisker menu at your mouse pointer. CTRL+ALT+Esc are the Linux kill (xkill) keys. Your mouse pointer should change to indicate that xkill has been activated and will kill any application you click it on.
For Thunar file manager, super + f will work, though on Xubuntu, super + e (for windows users) is also Thunar file manager, by default. My favourite Thunar shortcut is F4, for opening a terminal in the current folder. On standard XFCE, super + e usually launches mousepad. Most people know that CTRL+ALT+t brings up a terminal, but on Xubuntu, super + t will also suffice. Media keys are a wonderful thing, but out-of-the-box Xubuntu can emulate these keys if your keyboard is lacking. Super + m will launch your mail reader (Thunderbird usually), and super +w will launch your web browser. Super and F1 will ping your mouse pointer, so you don’t lose it. At any time, you can go ahead and change any of these default bindings, in keyboard → application shortcuts.
As I said, we are talking out-of-the-box here. You can also manipulate windows; most of you know ALT+F4 to close a window and ALT+TAB to switch windows, but do you know ALT+F9 to minimize a window? We know that F11 maximizes a browser or even some applications, but ALT+F11 will maximize things like Thunar; try it out. Would you like to send your current Thunar window to the ‘bottom of the pile of windows you have open’ and bring it back to the top? Then use ALT+SHIFT+PGDN. But wait! There’s more. If you act now, for a limited time only, you can use ALT+SPACE to emulate clicking on the folder icon in the top-left of your Thunar window. Yes, you heard correctly, 100% mouse-free action with the push of two buttons! Now obviously browsers are not included here as browsers have their own shortcut keys, so do not try these when your browser has focus. That’s right folks, browser shortcut keys sold separately. CTRL+n in Thunar, will net you a new window and CTRL+t a new tab. For that to work in the standard terminal, you need the shift-key. CTRL+SHFT+t will get you another tab in XFCE terminal.
Remember that if you change things like your composter, things like ALT+Mouse wheel-up, will no longer zoom your display. Do not confuse it with CTRL+Mouse wheel-up that will increase the zoom inside an application that supports it. For instance, in Thunar, the folder icons will increase in size, but the text will not. Should you wish to move a window, that, say, went out of bounds with a screen swap, you can use ALT+left-click to move a window, without grabbing it by the title bar.
If you use workspaces, ALT+INS will increase the amount of workspaces, whilst ALT+DEL will decrease them. If you press the keys and nothing seems to be happening, add the workspace switcher to one of your panels.
Let’s generalise for a second, usually CTRL is used in the “general” sphere. Things like: CTRL+o for open, CTRL+n for new, CTRL+q for quit. These keys should work in *most – not *all applications. CTRL+p to print, CTRL+s to save, CTRL+f to find, and the usual CTRL+c to copy, CTRL+v to paste, CTRL+x to cut, should get you almost all the way there. There is also CTRL++ to enlarge your view or CTRL+ - for the opposite, with CTRL+0 for “return to normal” should things get too big or too small, and don’t forget CTRL+r to refresh (not F5). I did not forget CTRL+a for select all, or CTRL+z for undo, but redo is the odd one out as sometimes it is CTRL+y or CTRL+SHIFT+z. These are ones you should know, as they work in other operating systems too.
The default screenshot tool in XFCE is screenshooter, and it also has some shortcut keys, PRTSCR to take a full screen screenshot, and SHIFT+PRTSCR to allow you to select the area of the screen you would like to get a picture of.
And that is the short n’ sweet of it, now to create your own. Open the keyboard app and navigate to ‘application shortcuts’. Don’t worry, we are on your side. If you see this little popup, and don’t know what to do, let us help.
When you right-click on any menu item in the whisker menu, you will see “edit application”. This is where you can copypasta the command you need from, into this little box prompting you for a “Command:”. Once you click “OK”, it will ask you for your key combination; be sure it does not overlap with any others beforehand and make sure you press correctly. If you made a mistake, you can always remove it with the “-” at the bottom, or if it was successful you should see something like this:
As you can see, my Cudatext shortcut is right at the top. Hooray! You are now well on your way to taming XFCE.