Bug 163732 - walk through windows does not work if changed from alt+tab
Summary: walk through windows does not work if changed from alt+tab
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: openSUSE Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords:
: 178930 187478 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-06-10 21:07 UTC by Maciej Pilichowski
Modified: 2009-07-09 09:34 UTC (History)
8 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


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Description Maciej Pilichowski 2008-06-10 21:07:13 UTC
Version:            (using KDE 4.0.4)
Installed from:    SuSE RPMs

3 apps.

In KDE3 I can switch to any app I want.

In KDE4 "walk" is simply switch between two last used apps.
Comment 1 FiNeX 2008-06-11 10:41:05 UTC
Do you mean ALT+TAB?
Comment 2 Maciej Pilichowski 2008-06-11 13:50:11 UTC
Well, it was alt+tab, but I always reassign it to win+tab. But it really does not matter, since the key is recognized, there is a response, but the wrong one.
Comment 3 lucas 2008-06-11 14:40:38 UTC
I can confirm this in SVN, changing the global shortcut to anything other than Alt+tab breaks it in different ways depending on the shortcut used.
Comment 4 Maciej Pilichowski 2008-07-14 12:33:20 UTC
Now even alt+tab does not work.
Comment 5 Patrick Spear 2009-01-11 16:59:49 UTC
I want to confirm that this is still a problem in 4.2 beta 2 and add some additional information about the bug.

If a custom shortcut is used for "walk through windows", the shortcut will work properly to INITIALIZE the walk-through process (the walk-through window will pop up and the second entry will be highlighted).  Once started, however, you can only move further down the list by hitting alt-tab and can only move back up the list using alt-shift-tab.  So, it seems that alt-tab is hardcoded in to the mechanism (apart from initialization).

Resolving this one would be a huge help to me as I'm setting up a wiimote to use with my media server, and being able to use alt+right and alt-left to walk through windows would be much better than having to assign another button on the wiimote to act as a shift key when I don't otherwise need to.  
Comment 6 Marc de Bruijn 2009-02-08 16:51:40 UTC
I'm running 4.2 and have the same problems Patrick is describing. Reverting to the defaults keyboard shortcuts (Alt+Tab and Alt+Shift+Backtab) after having changed them to something else doesn't bring back the proper application switching behaviour for me though.
Comment 7 Michael Jansen 2009-02-15 01:14:42 UTC
*** Bug 178930 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 8 lucas 2009-03-18 08:08:07 UTC
*** Bug 187478 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Dima Ryazanov 2009-04-04 19:46:07 UTC
Even reverting to Alt-Shift-Tab is broken: the default for walking in reverse is "Alt-Shift-Backtab", but if I enter it manually, it appears as "Alt-Backtab". After restarting kwin, it still doesn't work.
Comment 10 Dima Ryazanov 2009-04-04 19:54:44 UTC
That is, as Lucas mentioned in bug 187478, restarting kwin makes it use the new shortcuts - but it doesn't work for Alt-Shift-Backtab.

If I change "walk" to Meta-Tab, it starts switching - but never exits; I have to press Enter or Esc to stop. One time it froze completely.
Meta-Backtab doesn't work, just like Alt-Backtab.
Comment 11 lucas 2009-04-04 20:04:33 UTC
Using backtab with shortcuts doesn't work due to bug 179562.
Comment 12 Ronnie Bailey 2009-04-16 17:05:07 UTC
I may have the same bug. Window switching does not work at ll in KDE4. KDE3, Ubuntu Intrepid (gnome), and Windows XP all switch windows correctly. None of the above workarounds worked for me. alt+tab simply does nothing in KDE4. It worked before, so I assume that this is due to a recent upgrade. I subscribe to the "stable" KDE repositories. Hopefully a fix will be issued soon. It's a pain to have to use the mouse to switch windows.
Comment 13 Jussi Pakkanen 2009-04-28 21:48:21 UTC
I have suffered from a similar bug in every single KDE release since about 3.5.something days. It happens both on Debian and Kubuntu. 

Steps to reproduce

Change modifier key to mod.

Press and hold mod, keep holding it for a while. Press and release tab, keep holding mod down. The task list appears. Release mod. At this point the task list should disappear, but it does not. The only way to make it go away is to press tab or esc.

If you press mod and then flick tab very, very quickly and then immediately release mod, you change to the second topmost window. This is the correct behavior. But you have to be very fast, if the task list appears, you are screwed as discussed above.

What should happen: when you release mod, the task switcher should go away immediately, no exceptions.
Comment 14 Ronnie Bailey 2009-05-09 21:47:50 UTC
  I upgraded to 4.2.* and alt-tab now switches windows, but I get no window list. Focus is switched to the next window. If I hold "alt" and repeatedly hit "tab", I can switch through all windows. This problem is unique to one machine only, so I assume it is a problem with a settings file, and not really a bug. If I knew what file to delete, I could probably just start over.
  If it is of any importance, Compiz does show the switcher list if I choose it over Kwin and window manager, but the machine totally hangs and the only thing I can do is hold the power button to force a system halt. None of the keys can force a reboot or restart of X.
Comment 15 Martin Flöser 2009-05-09 21:57:24 UTC
(In reply to comment #14)
>   I upgraded to 4.2.* and alt-tab now switches windows, but I get no window
> list. Focus is switched to the next window. If I hold "alt" and repeatedly hit
> "tab", I can switch through all windows. This problem is unique to one machine
> only, so I assume it is a problem with a settings file, and not really a bug.
Ronnie your problem is not related to this bug and as you thought a wrong setting. Please consult a support channel like for example forum.kde.org as this is a technical bugtracker.
Comment 16 Ronnie Bailey 2009-05-09 22:17:55 UTC
I apologize for posting in the wrong area. Thanks for a very good product.
Comment 17 Sebastian Schubert 2009-05-16 08:56:39 UTC
I confirm the behaviour: WIN+TAB works after a restart, WIN+BACKTAB (WIN+SHIFT+TAB) does not even after a restart. WIN+TAB does not leave the window switcher window until another key is pressed. This can be fixed by

xmodmap -e "add mod4 = Super_L"

Apparently, this bug has been around for some time...
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149774
Comment 18 Martin Flöser 2009-05-25 10:35:48 UTC
SVN commit 972533 by graesslin:

Track change of global shortcuts for tabbox. Required for the tabbox to work correctly when a shortcut is changed.
BUG: 163732

 M  +30 -0     tabbox.cpp  
 M  +18 -0     useractions.cpp  
 M  +7 -0      workspace.h  


WebSVN link: http://websvn.kde.org/?view=rev&revision=972533
Comment 19 Dima Ryazanov 2009-07-09 09:34:53 UTC
Did the fix not make it into KDE 4.3 RC1?
I'm still seeing this bug.