Version: (using KDE KDE 3.5.1) Installed from: Fedora RPMs OS: Linux Alt-Tab window switching does not work in "show window list" (KDE) mode. Instead of showing the window list, Alt-Tab just immediately toggles between the current window and the previous window. To reproduce: Create a new user account on FC4. Log into the user account using KDE (kde 3.5.1-0.1.fc4 RPMs as distributed by Fedora). Open at least three windows (i.e., two Konsole windows and a web browser), then try to press Alt-Tab to switch between them. Observe that instead of showing the window list and allowing cycling through the windows, Alt-Tab just toggles between two of the three windows. The kwinrc file created for the user account contains the following: [$Version] update_info=kwin.upd:kde3.0r1,kwin.upd:kde3.2Xinerama,kwin3_plugin.upd:kde3.2,kwin_focus2.upd:kwin_f ocus2,kwin_focus1.upd:kwin_focus1 [Desktops] Name_1= Name_2= Name_3= Name_4= Number=4 [Style] PluginLib=kwin3_bluecurve [Windows] IgnoreFocusStealingClasses=kio_uiserver
Hmm, it looks like the window list works properly when I use left-Alt, but not when I use right-Alt. Further examination of the X server config shows that Alt_L and Meta_L are mapped to mod1, but not Alt_R. This may be an issue with Fedora's default X keyboard config rather than a KDE issue.
See also https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=122752 (this same issue with the GNOME Metacity WM) and https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=926 (the Xorg/XFree86 bug report that relates to this config change). Is there something that KDE/KWin can do to work around this, the way Metacity did, using XKB? (See http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151554 for the Metacity changes.)
The right Alt key is generally not Alt at all. So RAlt+Tab should not be interpreted as Alt+Tab.
That is not always true. For non-US keyboard layouts I understand the right Alt key is frequently used as an "AltGr" key to access a third symbol on some keys (accents, etc.). However, keyboards in the US do not have an "AltGr" key, and the left and right Alt keys are used interchangeably. This is how they are treated by other PC OSes (i.e., Windows) as well. This is pretty much the same issue raised in the freedesktop and RedHat bug reports that I referenced. Xorg claims that they will not re-add Alt_R to the mod1 list because it interferes with the use of Alt_R as AltGr for non-US keyboard layouts. However (IMHO), when Alt_R is not being used as AltGr, it should be treated by applications and by the window manager as a synonym for Alt_L.
I've ran into a similar problem to this on debian unstable. This is with the amd64 debs. My issue is a little different. If you change the shortcut key from Alt-Tab to something else, like meta-tab the window list does not show up anymore and Tabbing only goes between the last two activated windows just like described before. Is it possible that somewhere in the code at ALT-TAB keys hardcoded to display the window list? Just a guess looking at the issue reported about the right ALT key and me just changing the key binding to use META-TAB. Cheers, Scott
I forgot to mention, this is with: sbeck@satori:~$ kwin --version Qt: 3.3.6 KDE: 3.5.2 KWin: 3.0
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 140023 ***