Ubuntu – Why can’t I bind Ctrl-Shift-W in Emacs

emacsUbuntu

I'm trying to bind Ctrl+Shift+W to something in emacs under Ubuntu. Nothing happens when I press that key combination. When I call describe-key on that key combination, nothing happens.

Is Ubuntu intercepting that key combination?

Update:

I'm running emacs in graphical mode under the default Ubuntu UI (whatever that is). If I type C-S-q or C-S-s they work fine, but when I hit C-S-w, emacs behaves as if nothing happened.

Is there a way to see if the window manager is intercepting the key press?

Best Answer

Start another X server on a different console, with emacs as the main process:

startx emacs

Now you have no window manager, and can determine whether C-S-w makes it through to emacs.

That's the first stage in tracking down the problem. If the problem is Emacs itself, then look first at function-key-map; if it's the window manager, then ps -fHu$USER (in your main X session) to find out which window manager you've been given.

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