Bug 13977

Summary: Compiz keybindings improperly steal modifier keys
Product: xorg Reporter: dmenest-alliztdf
Component: App/compizAssignee: David Reveman <reveman>
Status: RESOLVED INVALID QA Contact: Xorg Project Team <xorg-team>
Severity: normal    
Priority: medium    
Version: 7.2 (2007.02)   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Whiteboard:
i915 platform: i915 features:

Description dmenest-alliztdf 2008-01-08 14:36:46 UTC 
(compiz version 0.6.0+20071008, on Ubuntu Gutsy)

When running compiz with the default settings on my computer, the Alt key removes focus from the current application, and therefore any application's keybindings using Alt do not work (notably, Firefox and gnome-terminal tabs).

I spent a great deal of time trying to find a cause and solution for this, and I believe I have figured it out.  My keyboard has an odd layout that has caused me to remap my F1 key to Escape using a .Xmodmap file.  Compiz has a default keybinding for Alt-F1.  When Compiz has this keybinding for F1, yet no key can generate F1, it seems to get confused and steal Alt from all applications.

This is easily reproducible.  Just run:
  xmodmap -e 'keysym F1 = Escape'
and restart Compiz.  If you have a compiz keybinding for Alt-F1, then you will notice that Alt removes focus from all applications.

This sounds like a minor problem that affects only people with strange setups, but it does seem that many people are having the same problem.  For example:
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=632224
  http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=5898
Comment 1 dmenest-alliztdf 2008-01-08 15:01:38 UTC 
Hmm, after finally figuring out the cause of the bug, I think I've found that the bug has already been fixed in later versions:
  http://gitweb.opencompositing.org/?p=fusion/compizconfig/libcompizconfig;a=blobdiff;f=src/compiz.c;h=fcb0702c9ce83146dffdc739daa38fa72b631eed;hp=b71e01504bd9fa9193e0d7c0fbc6e66504da7289;hb=6ab37f581c1322d5a64e97baaaae063e5608e081;hpb=52dba67492c3ae322e709c4dd11c3052f9514ac4

Further, it looks like it was a bug in Compiz Fusion, not Compiz.  Sorry for the mistake.

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