GNOME bug 150897 points out that as things stand you can’t bind naked modifiers to actions– for example, you can’t have it so that pressing alt on its own takes a screenshot.
The reason this might be useful is that pressing super (which is generally the key with the Windows logo on it) on its own brings up the main menu in Windows, and it would be nice to allow it to do so in GNOME as well.
Of course it could also be done by making the key not be a modifier, but then you would lose the ability to make super-M or whatever do something.
Your chronicler can foresee having to switch away from their trusty IBM Model M to test this one.
Photo © frohner-1, cc-by.
ThisIdea++
Minor note… a naked modifer action should be triggered on /release/ and not on press (as is the Windows behavior for the Super key), so that you can still use that modifer in conjunction with other keys.
Minor note… a naked modifer action should be triggered on /release/ (as is the Windows behavior for the Super key) and not on press, so that you can still use that modifer in conjunction with other keys.
arg, sorry about that…
Delete the first comment, as it’s ambiguous as to what the Windows behavior is. Windows triggers the event on release of the naked modifier, as it should be.
I’d agree this’d be a useful feature. I use Super to open the main menu because, well¸ Alt+F1 isn’t as easy to remember nor as convenient to type. As you point out, this means I can’t bind e.g. Super+S to open a search window.
user’s comment seems on the mark.
The Start key has never behaved as a modifier on my system… I currently have it bound to the Open Terminal command…