Keyboard shortcuts

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The desktop's keyboard shortcuts work wherever the keyboard is, in any window. Each action, such as moving to the next workspace, can have several shortcuts, or none.

Changing a shortcut #

In Desktop Settings, Keyboard Shortcuts under For You lists every action, grouped into Launcher & Dock and Windows & Workspaces, with its shortcuts as keys.

• + Add, then press the keys you want. Holding Ctrl or Alt on its own is waited past; press Esc, or click elsewhere, to stop without changing anything.
• × on a shortcut removes it. An action with none says None.
• Reset puts one action back to the System Default; Reset All to System Default puts them all back.

A shortcut must include Ctrl, Alt or Meta, since the desktop takes it from every window, a text field included, and a key on its own is met while typing. The browser keeps a few shortcuts for itself, such as Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T and F11, and those can't be used. A shortcut already assigned to another action is refused, with which; remove it there first.

Open Dock Item is set by modifiers, not a whole shortcut: Alt means Alt+1 to Alt+9, one for each of the first nine items in the dock. To change it, press Change, then hold the new modifiers and press any number.

Changes apply at once, in every window of yours.

The actions #

Where they are kept #

Each action's shortcuts are one REG_SZ value, named by its id, in:

Your value is used if there is one, else the machine's, else the built-in default. The data is the shortcuts separated by spaces, each written as its keys joined by +, for example Ctrl+Alt+ArrowLeft Ctrl+Alt+J. Open Dock Item's is its modifiers alone, such as Alt or Ctrl+Alt.

An empty value is an action with no shortcut, which is different from no value, which leaves the next level in force. A value that isn't a REG_SZ, or that holds anything that isn't a shortcut the desktop may take, is ignored as a whole and the next level is used; nothing repairs it.

$ reg set 'CurrentUser\Software\Fenestra\Shortcuts' Launcher 'sz:Ctrl+Space'

Where to go next #

• Default apps
• Settings for all users, for the machine's shortcuts

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