How to change/disable the switch workspace hotkey?

[Member rayluo]

The default workspace switching hotkeys in antiX 19 b2 use ALT+1, ALT+2, ALT+3, ALT+4, but then ALT+CTRL+5, ALT+CTRL+6, ….

I would like to change the first 4 to match the rest, or even disable them altogether, so that I can let the ALT+1, ALT+2, ALT+3, ALT+4 work as the Firefox browser switch tab hot key.

It is supposed to be an easy task, but my STFW skill could not find anything by “site:antixforum.com workspace”.

Can anyone shed some light? Thanks!

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[Member BobC]

Make a backup copy of ~/.icewm/preferences first in case you screw up

Go to Control Centre, Desktop, and click Edit IceWM Settings

Then go to the preferences tab and just edit it to look like the others and save it.

Then go to the arrow beside the logout menu, and click to restart IceWM

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by BobC. Reason: that's in preferences not keys
• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by BobC. Reason: add backup copy first

[Member BobC]

PS: I use

KeySysWorkspacePrev=”Alt+Ctrl+Left”

KeySysWorkspaceNext=”Alt+Ctrl+Right”

[Member rayluo]

Works like a charm! Thank you Bob! (Wish I can upvote your reply.)

[Member rayluo]

BobC wrote:

Make a backup copy of ~/.icewm/preferences first in case you screw up

Go to Control Centre, Desktop, and click Edit IceWM Settings

Then go to the preferences tab and just edit it to look like the others and save it.

Then go to the arrow beside the logout menu, and click to restart IceWM

BobC’s method above works fine (thanks Bob again!). But then, after needing to re-do such configuration again and again each time after I wipe out my previous persistence file and start over (yep, I’m playing with antiX trying to find my sweet spot), I wonder why the default setting contain the inconsistent style in the first place. Why ALT+1,2,3,4 for the first 4 workspaces, and CTRL+ALT+5,6,7,8,9,0 for the rest? Wouldn’t switching workspace happen less frequent than switching browser tabs, therefore we better preset the workspace hotkey to all use CTRL+ALT+number instead?

@dolphin_oracle, @anticapitalista and folks, thoughts?

Regards,
Ray

[Moderator masinick]

I will simply “speculate” (a fancy word for a semi-educated guess).

The use of ALT and CTRL are there to demonstrate which keys can be used and they are simply examples. Since they can easily change, I suspect that the original settings were simply made to demonstrate how to set them up. I’ve never seen any distribution “alter” the default settings, so antiX is not unique in leaving the IceWM preference settings intact.

The suggestions from BobC are right on. Save the original settings in a safe place. Experiment with plenty of settings and save several of them, each in a differently labelled configuration file so that you can see what you did. I also suggest adding your own comments within the configuration files or take additional notes and store them away.

Finally, if you come up with any really creative ideas, either with keys, visual effects, or anything else that could potentially be valuable to someone else, document and share your observations, thoughts, and examples. This helps to further educate other people, and who knows, perhaps it could form future preference defaults for a distribution, maybe even your own “home grown” distribution.

Best wishes; I hope these ideas are constructive and useful.

rayluo wrote:

BobC wrote:

Make a backup copy of ~/.icewm/preferences first in case you screw up

Go to Control Centre, Desktop, and click Edit IceWM Settings

Then go to the preferences tab and just edit it to look like the others and save it.

Then go to the arrow beside the logout menu, and click to restart IceWM

BobC’s method above works fine (thanks Bob again!). But then, after needing to re-do such configuration again and again each time after I wipe out my previous persistence file and start over (yep, I’m playing with antiX trying to find my sweet spot), I wonder why the default setting contain the inconsistent style in the first place. Why ALT+1,2,3,4 for the first 4 workspaces, and CTRL+ALT+5,6,7,8,9,0 for the rest? Wouldn’t switching workspace happen less frequent than switching browser tabs, therefore we better preset the workspace hotkey to all use CTRL+ALT+number instead?

@dolphin_oracle, @anticapitalista and folks, thoughts?

Regards,
Ray

Brian Masinick

[Member BobC]

The simplest solution is to create a zip file of ~/.icewm and email it to yourself or save it to your “special” flashdrive. That way you will have all of your icewm settings to reinstall if you ever reload again.

There are obviously many possible more elegant or possibly better solutions, but I know that one works.

[Moderator masinick]

BobC wrote:

The simplest solution is to create a zip file of ~/.icewm and email it to yourself or save it to your “special” flashdrive. That way you will have all of your icewm settings to reinstall if you ever reload again.

There are obviously many possible more elegant or possibly better solutions, but I know that one works.

Excellent suggestion! My “back-up” copies of scripts, data, and small utilities are often scattered between Email messages [for small, frequently used and modified pieces of information or scripts], and a variety of “cloud-based” locations, including things like Dropbox, Google Drive or Google Docs, and several other places, so that the loss or compromise of any one source will not leave me without alternatives. For REALLY small things, totally off-line solutions like writing certain ideas in a personally handled notebook, text message, etc. are other choices that work for reminders and notes.

Some other technologies used:

tar commands, piping files, directories, and occasionally complete partitions to another device.
dd commands to copy (byte by byte) to any other location or source.
ISO images to snapshot a system that might be used again, backed up, moved, or copied elsewhere.
copy

This isn’t an exhaustive list, nor do these necessarily describe every method I have used, but they may provide a few ideas to consider…

• This reply was modified 4 months ago by masinick.

Brian Masinick

[Member BobC]

For transferring systems I use a program called aptik-gtk, but its not in the repos.

[Member rayluo]

Thanks @masinick for the info. Speculation aside, I was not aware that those default settings are an IceWM thing, not an antiX thing. Now that makes sense that antiX is not necessarily in a position to change that.

And I appreciate all your creative methods to save your own configuration files. I did something similar too. 🙂

Regards,
Ray

masinick wrote:

I will simply “speculate” (a fancy word for a semi-educated guess).

The use of ALT and CTRL are there to demonstrate which keys can be used and they are simply examples. Since they can easily change, I suspect that the original settings were simply made to demonstrate how to set them up. I’ve never seen any distribution “alter” the default settings, so antiX is not unique in leaving the IceWM preference settings intact.

The suggestions from BobC are right on. Save the original settings in a safe place. …

rayluo wrote:

… why the default ~/.icewm setting contain the inconsistent style in the first place. Why ALT+1,2,3,4 for the first 4 workspaces, and CTRL+ALT+5,6,7,8,9,0 for the rest? Wouldn’t switching workspace happen less frequent than switching browser tabs, therefore we better preset the workspace hotkey to all use CTRL+ALT+number instead?

[Member skidoo]

(I’m not an aptik user, just posting this as a FYI)

these packages from MX Linux testing repository are suitable for use in antiX 17 or antiX19b2

http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/pool/test/a/aptik-gtk/aptik-gtk_18.8-0.1~mx17+1_i386.deb

http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/pool/test/a/aptik-gtk/aptik-gtk_18.8-0.1~mx17+1_amd64.deb

cd /tmp
wget http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/pool/test/a/aptik-gtk/aptik-gtk_18.8-0.1~mx17+1_amd64.deb
sudo apt install dconf-cli aptitude-common aptitude libcwidget3v5
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/aptik-gtk_18.8-0.1~mx17+1_amd64.deb

gksu aptik-gtk

[Member BobC]

Thanks, skidoo, I would always much prefer to run something from an antiX or MX repo from both safety and bug avoidance perspectives.

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