command linenanoshortcut-keystext-editor
The Alt key is used for many useful commands, but unfortunately it's caught by the terminal window to activate the window menus (File, Edit, …).
I would like to either force the terminal window to pass Alt to the terminal or get nano to use some other key/combination (I'm using GNOME Terminal 2.32.1).
ps: There is a related, but different question here where it's pointed out that Ctrl + Right Arrow cannot be bound to "move forward a word".
I was calling it the 'window movement key' (based on the Window Preferences settings from Ubuntu 11.04). It seems in practice it's actually referred to as the 'mouse button modifier'.
Install the 'Configuration Editor' (gconf-editor) from the Ubuntu Software Center. You can use it to change the key.. or manually do it from the terminal with:
gconftool --set --type string /apps/metacity/general/mouse_button_modifier "<Super>"
The default value is <Alt>. I've changed it above to be the super (Windows) key. Other valid values are <Shift>, and <Control>.
Here's the description of the key from gnome.org:
"Clicking a window while holding down this modifier key will move the window (left click), resize the window (middle click), or show the window menu (right click). The middle and right click operations may be swapped using the "resize_with_right_button" key. Modifier is expressed as "<Alt>" or "<Super>" for example."
Install compizconfig-settings-manager . Search for "compiz" in the Unity Dash, or start with
ccsm from the commandline.
Warning
CompizConfig Settings Manager (
ccsm) is an advanced tool, and not all of its options are completely compatible with Unity. As such, CCSM has been known to sometimes break users' desktops. Please use caution and know that you are taking a risk by following this answer or any other answer that recommends the use of CCSM. In the event that following this advice does break Unity, please see this question for instructions on how to reset it.
Find the Grid plugin:
Click on the key binding you want to change, click on Grab key combination, and press the keys you'd like to use.
Best Answer
The terminal emulation handles that already. If a key combination with ALT is used by the terminal itself, you can just substitute ALT with ESC. For example, if you want to count characters, words and lines in nano and ALT+D is used by the terminal, just type ESC+D.