keyboardshortcut-keys
I just got a Dell XPS 13 and found out that the keyboard lacks the Del key. I often use that key for deleting files and text without using the mouse. How can I setup a shortcut that mimics that key?
edit: Oops. My keyboard is in german so I though I had the Home and End keys, but now I notice I have the Insert and Delete keys. It still annoying because now I want to know how to simulate the Home and End keys.
In Kubuntu Ctrl+Backspace by default is assigned to the action "Delete Word Backwards" which is used by some applications. You can overwrite this, though.
One solution was to install xautomation and then create a shortcut for Ctrl+Backspace which runs
xte 'key Delete':
Open a terminal (i.e. Konsole) and run sudo apt-get install xautomation.
Open Custom Shortcuts via the search menu.
Click Edit → New → Global Shortcut → Command/URL. Name the new shortcut.
Go to the Trigger tab, click the input button (None) and press Ctrl+Backspace. Then click onto Reassign.
Go to the Action tab and enter xte 'key Delete'.
Click Apply. Ready.
(More about xte which is part of xautomation.)
To assign a new shortcut to "Delete Word Backwards" add a custom combination to that action within Standard Keyboard Shortcuts.
You can use xbindkeys to grab the keys and xvkbd to send keys.
Create a file .xbindkeysrc in your home directory and paste this text:
"xvkbd -xsendevent -text '\[Delete]'"
Alt + BackSpace
"xvkbd -xsendevent -text '\[Home]'"
Alt + Left
"xvkbd -xsendevent -text '\[Page_Down]'"
Alt + Down
Then start xbindkeys and it should work. Probably you want to map more keys, then after you edited the .xbindkeysrc you can run pkill -HUP xbindkeys to send a HUP signal to xbindkeys (or kill xbindkeys and start it again).
To see the key names that xbindkeys sees, you can run xbindkeys -mk (man xbindkeys has more info).
To see the key names that xvkbd knows, have a look in /usr/include/X11/keysymdef.h (maybe someone else knows a better method?).
xbindkeys only runs until your X session ends, so you probably want to put it in your startup (auto-start) programs.
Best Answer
Pos1 (Home) and End keys are accessible through Fn + ←/→ keys.
For example, see this product picture from Amazon.