Ctrl+Alt shortcut modifier change breaks Pixel C Keyboard

[gscholt]

Hi,

The Pixel C keyboard has missing keys and a [...] key that the keyboard driver that can be used to compose these missing keys. The [...] key is on the location of the right-alt, and I believe that is the code being generated for this key.

Recently in v0.42 the keyboard shortcuts were changed from Ctrl+Shift to Ctrl+Alt for #145, but this breaks shortcuts I need in vi, namely Ctrl+], which I compose with Ctrl+[...]+p, which is now interpreted as Ctrl+Alt+p and is therefor capture by termux.

I would prefer the Ctrl+Shift back the way is was, but if that is not possible, ignore the right-alt key so I can still use Ctrl+ sequences. Possibly allow us to configure something? (apparently keyboard are tricky things)

[fornwall]

@gscholt What do you think about Ctrl+Shift+Alt - would you be satisfied with that or do you think holding three modifiers down for shortcuts is a bit too much?

[gscholt]

I have a very strong preference for Ctrl+Shift, the less keys the better imo. In my regular use I switch "tabs" frequently, so the easier the better.

An other option could be the 'Search' key perhaps (I believe it's the Meta key internally, but not sure), but I do not know if it can be used fully as a modifier, since (on the Pixel C at least) the OS captures some of the Search+ keybindings for showing the home screen, gmail, etc.

[qntmpkts]

Ctrl+Shift will break some shortcuts on Chrome. Given platform should take precedence over user-specific bindings, I'm open to anything that will not break Chrome.

Cf. https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/183101.

[gscholt]

Given platform should take precedence over user-specific bindings, I'm open to anything that will not break Chrome

The reasoning is sound, but unfortunately incompatible with the Pixel C without some trickery. Ctrl+ is a very common terminal shortcut, and the Pixel C platform requires you to add an ... (Right-Alt) to that.

I can see three options:

1. Detect a Chromebook and use Ctrl+Alt+ there, and use Ctrl+Shift+ otherwise. This is lousy, horrible to document and possibly confusing.
2. Introduce a setting to let the user switch between a default Ctrl+Alt+ and Ctrl+Shift+. Then you can keep documenting the default behavior (which has more use cases, Pixel C is special).
3. Hope my guess that the [...] key is indeed the right alt, and change the keybindings to be Ctrl+LeftAlt+ specifically. This could confuse users that actually have 2 keys labeled Alt, where one doesn't work.

Option 2 seems like the best one to me. Option 3 seems like the least amount of work.