I am transitioning from Gnome+FVWM to the Xfce environment. Really nice work! There is one thing, however, that I haven't been really been able to adapt to, yet, is the fact that I cannot seem to be able to create action short-cuts that are activated only when the mouse is over the background (root window, in FVWM speak). I used to have a number of keyboard shortcuts, such as "C-x" to start an xterm. With Xfce, I don't see to be able to use C-x anymore, as it's too "generic" and might overlap with a key binding used by other programs. Without implementing the concept of "context" that FVWM provides, how about adding a "Keyboard" tab to the Xfdesktop configuration window, and allow the same application shortcuts as the ones in the "Keyboard" settings? In the meantime, I have been trying to use more elaborate shortcuts, such as Ctrl-Alt-x, but it's very awkward for actions that I do very frequently each day...
> such as Ctrl-Alt-x, but it's very awkward for actions that I do very frequently each day I suggest picking another key, even more if it's a frequent action. There are some rarely used/special keys on keyboards (super? context-menu?). IMHO this is a a corner case, and adding this would add complexity and confusion: * having 2 different "keyboard shortcuts" sets and configuration dialogs would be confusing * Inconsistent behavior if your mouse pointer is over a window or over the desktop is confusing. A word from maintainers would be appreciated. Setting to NEEDINFO.
There's a proposed plan to merge all the different keyboard settings into one unified dialogue but it hasn't been accepted by anyone to actually to do the implementation. So I'd personally rather not add another one that would have to be merged in. If/when the proposal gets implemented then we can look into this. https://wiki.xfce.org/design/xfce4-settings/mergedialogs
I agree with Julien. This feature would add another layer of complexity with very little benefit for the overall Xfce desktop experience.