In 4.1 beta 1, it appears that setting shortcuts to alt+<letter> has no effect (at least those overlapping with menu shortcuts, like alt+h). Works fine in 3.5.9. I am mostly guessing about the component, please move as appropriate.
Keyboard Shortcuts were reworked a lot for KDE4.2. Here using: Qt: 4.4.3 KDE: 4.1.86 (KDE 4.1.86 (KDE 4.2 >= 20081221)) kdelibs svn rev. 901624 / kdebase svn rev. 901624 on ArchLinux x86_64 - Kernel 2.6.27.10 I can select Alt+Letter for a global shortcut ( like launching KRunner) , and it works OK. Can anyone else confirm this?
Still unfixed as of KDE 4.3. Also, bug 185788 is a duplicate of this one. To those of you that miss the functionality from KDE 3 there is a workaround. It involves swapping your keys, so that Alt actually triggers Super and vice versa: setxkbmap -model pc104 xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Alt_L' xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Meta_L' xmodmap -e 'remove mod4 = Super_L' xmodmap -e 'keycode 64 = Super_L' xmodmap -e 'keycode 133 = Alt_L' xmodmap -e 'add mod1 = Alt_L' xmodmap -e 'add mod4 = Super_L' It has it's drawbacks, though. (Like, reconfiguring Alt+Tab to be actually Super+Tab)
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 185788 ***