Re: [Pan-users] "name as subject"

[Duncan]

On Tue 11 Feb 2003 23:06, Danny Rathjens posted as excerpted below:
> Incidentally, the gtk+ feature of modifying menu shortcuts mentioned in
> the FAQ
> doesn't work for me.  I guess I should try to figure that out too.

The FAQ needs updated, I think, as this is the third time at least I've 
replied to this, and I got the info from the list, so it's at least the forth 
time it's come up.

That answer in the FAQ was for gtk+1 (unless it's JUST been changed).  gtk+2 
is somewhat different in that I believe for HIG (human interface guidelines) 
purposes, they standardized hotkeys for many things, and decided that they 
shouldn't be changeable by default.  It's still possible to change them -- 
you just need to add the "gtk-can-change-accels = 1" string to your gtkrc-2.0 
file.

However, since I am running Mandrake Cooker betas and update to the bleeding 
edge twice a week or so, at one point they broke that functionality here, and 
despite that entry, PAN (the only gtk+2 app I work with enough to be worth 
futzing with the hotkeys on, since I run a KDE desktop and most apps) 
wouldn't let me change its hotkeys by simply pointing at the function I 
wanted to change and hitting the combo I wanted.  

Thus, I learned the manual tweaking method of changing the PAN hotkeys config 
file itself.  It is located in ~/.pan/data/accels.txt.  By default, all 
entries are commented out with ";", so remove that if you change an entry 
from the default.  The file is a raw dump of the menu order as PAN sees it, 
so isn't in any particular human identifiable order.  If you sort it 
manually, it will return to unordered upon first PAN close after that.  Thus, 
you have two options.  You can either use find to look for what you want, and 
change it, or do what I did, and create a sorted backup file that you modify 
and copy over PAN's working copy as desired.  This technique allowed me 
another modification as well.  Since I had trouble tracking which hotkeys 
were already used, I created a commented out table at the end, with letters 
and symbols on the y axis, and key, control-key, shift-key, and 
shift-control-key on the x axis. filling in the resulting slots as they were 
used.  Thus, when I made a change, I changed the menu entry, then removed the 
old table entry and added the new one, so I could continually track whether a 
particular combo was used or not.

If you are manually updating the accels file, one other issue came up for one 
guy.  Note that modifier keys are formatted as <control>,<shift>a, for 
instance.  Shift-A is not "A", but <shift>a, in the file entry.  Also 
remember to remove the semicolon commenting out the default line if you 
change it.  Finally, if you should wish to use function keys, they are 
formatted as "F1", etc. not "f1" or <F1>, which don't work.  I had to work 
that out on my own.

I just tested changing it using the pointing method, and it appears Mandrake 
fixed whatever they broke, and it works again now, here.  However, I think I 
will continue to use the manual method, since it works, and I did all the 
work of sorting the entries and adding the table, and would hate for it to 
get outdated, and something get broken again!

-- 
Duncan
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin