Hi
I know you can tile windows to certain locations with Meta and the arrow keys etc. However my keyboard doesn’t have a Meta key. Is there an option somewhere I’m missing where I’m able to rebind this key combo?
if you go to settings > keyboard
under the hardware tab, what does is say for Keyboard model:
and does that match your keyboard?
No, it’s generic 104-key because it doesn’t have my actual keyboard.
It’s a full size keyboard that predates the Meta and the Menu key: should I set it to 102 key? (I haven’t actually counted how many keys it has lol)
yes, you should choose the one that best matches your layout.
does it have a vertical enter key (102) or a horizontal enter key (101) with the backslash key above it?
It has a vertical L-shaped Return key. It is the full standard UK layout, it just doesn’t have the meta or menu key because it was manufactured in 1992.
I have worked out how to swap Meta and Alt to get most of the functionality back, but I also need to keep Alt so… ideally I’d just like to remap the tiling functionality to like ctrl+alt, or idk F8 or something but I can’t see a way to do this.
I’m not sure what the endgame is with changing my keyboard in the hardware tab. Would this change the default mappings away from the keys that aren’t present? I want to reiterate that it’s not like I have an Apple keyboard that has just replaced the Windows key with something else, the key is just not there. There is nothing in its place, so I want to remap the functionality of the tiler. It’s the only thing I use the meta key for anyway, apart from dragging windows around with the mouse, which I can live without. (Again, I can swap that with Alt, but I need alt and drag to crop sources in OBS)
so that’s a generic 102 key which has the backslash on lower left next to the shift key.
it matters because of what you are going to do next.
i the same settings page under advanced there is an entire section devoted to swapping alt, ctrl, win, meta key around in various ways.
give that section a good going over and see if you can’t find a solution that works for you.
if not, you can also try using input-remapper to make up your own key combination from the keys you have.
i would probably lean to make the left ctrl the win key so that it more closely resembles a more modern keyboard, and you can use the right ctrl key for the ctrl modifier.
1 Like
Nevermind, I found them under Keyboard –> Shortcuts –> “custom quick tile window to the ____”
I knew I was just not seeing a UI element in a menu somewhere. Classic KDE <3 Thanks for your help
Having two Alt and Ctrl keys probably means you don’t use one of them very much at all, pick that one to remap.
There’s a good walkthrough and explanation here if the built in help doesn’t cover it enough: Mastering Key Remapping on Linux: A Practical Guide with xremap · Paolo Mainardi
And you can test your mappings here: https://keyboard.madtyping.com/
You can actually create your own keyboard layout too - I created an ‘AK’ layout for my 75% Ajazz, gave it a third level chooser and added some common items to my third layer on a basic US layout.
I’m not sure how trivial it would be to remove the location of the missing Meta key and create a full 102 layout though, but once done you can re-assign as you see fit…