KHotKeys or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Windows Key
It's probably safe to say that at least eighty percent of you are sitting in front of a keyboard with a "Window key" on it. It's also probably safe to say that the majority of you never touch it.
In Windows, the Window key is pretty much a waste of space. Who actually navigates the start menu with the keyboard? It's used in a couple of handy shortcuts (win+D, win+R), but that's pretty much it. Often times it's nothing more than a curse when pressed accidentally. Some even go so far as to physically remove the key from the keyboard all together.
In Linux however, the Window key can finally blossum to it's full potential. KDE has KHotKeys and I'm sure that Gnome must have something equivalent. These daemons allow users to define the custom global keyboard shortcuts to oft used applications. I'm sure many of you are already familiar with these programs. If not they're described by several other threads on this forum, so I won't get into specifics here.
My goal is simply to advocate the use of the Window key above all others for global hotkeys. I often see posts where people discuss how they assign their favourite calculator app to ctrl+alt+C. Why not try win+C instead? The reasons why the Window keys are ideal for global keyboard shortcuts are numerous:
- Linux apps don't assume it exists and therefore don't assign shortcuts to it, allowing one to "reserve" the Window key for global hotkeys. ctrl+alt, ctrl+shift or (God forbid) ctrl+alt+shift combinations can often cause conflicts with application shortcuts. amaroK is the only Linux app that I know of that uses the Window key for shortcuts, but it uses it for its own global shortcuts anyway.
- Dual modifier shortcuts often use two hands (one for the modifiers, one for the keystroke) or require dexterity testing finger acrobatics to pull off. By using just the Windows key without other modifiers, all almost combinations are easily reachable with a single hand.
- They're usually closer the centre of the keyboard than ctrl, which results in less stretching.
- Some may find pleasure in the fact that the Window key (a Microsoft invention) is actually fifty times more useful under Linux.
- It just makes sense to use different modifiers for different types of shortcuts.
- alt => Accelerator shortcuts
- ctrl => Application shortcuts
- win => Global shortcuts
- ctrl+alt => Important system shortcuts
- It greatly increases the possiblilities for ridiculously complex shortcuts. Who wouldn't want to assign a terminal window to win+ctrl+alt+shift+scrolllock?
- There are two of them just sitting there. What else are you going to do with them?
Oh, and of course those of you on a Macintosh or an IBM type-M or a laptop (which may not have a Window key or may have it in a bizarre location) can feel free to tell me to mess off.
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