Example of configuring key bindings

This section provides a comprehensive example that ties together some of the concepts and procedures discussed in this chapter.

The following example assumes that you are using the default pmwm mode of the window manager, that you want to create a new key binding set for your local environment, and you want to name the set ``MyKeyBindings''. MyKeyBindings consists of four key binding definitions that produce the following results:

• Pressing <Shift><Esc> with the keyboard input focus on either an icon or window posts the menu named for the Pmwm*windowMenu resource specification. (See line 6 of the following sample file.)

• Pressing <Ctrl><Space> with the keyboard input focus on either an icon or window, or on the Root menu, posts the menu named ``MyRootMenu''. (See line 7 of the following sample file.)

• Pressing <Alt><Esc> with the keyboard input focus on either an icon or window, or on the Root menu, sets the keyboard input focus to the next icon or window in the set of icons or windows managed by the window manager. (See line 8 of the following sample file.)

• Pressing <Alt> <Shift><Esc> with the keyboard input focus on either an icon or window, or on the Root menu, sets the keyboard input focus to the previous icon or window in the set of icons or windows managed by the window manager. (See line 9 of the following sample file.)

1. Open the .pmwmrc file in your $HOME directory for editing. (If .pmwmrc does not already exist, create it by copying /usr/lib/X11/system.pmwmrc to .pmwmrc in your $HOME directory.)

2. Locate the ``DefaultKeyBindings'' section in the .pmwmrc file and place a copy of the section underneath the default definitions. You can use this copy as a template for your new key binding set.

3. Rename ``DefaultKeyBindings'' to ``MyKeyBindings''.
   

4. Edit the template so that it looks like this:

       1   #
       2   # key binding descriptions
       3   #
       4   Keys  MyKeyBindings
       5   {
       6       Shift<Key>Escape      icon|window          f.post_wmenu
       7       Ctrl<Key>space        icon|window|root     f.menu MyRootMenu
       8       Alt<Key>Escape        icon|window|root     f.next_key
       9       Alt Shift<Key>Escape  icon|window|root     f.prev_key
      10   }
   

5. Define the keyBindings resource to announce the new key binding set to the window manager. Specify the resource in the $HOME/.Xdefaults-hostname file, where hostname is the name of the host, or machine, where the window manager is running. The resource specification should look like this:
   
   PmwmkeyBindings: MyKeyBindings

6. Restart the window manager so that the new key binding information is implemented.