Ubuntu – How to stop Unity 2d intercepting meta key when I’m in VirtualBox

The way links show up and act in Unity (or most modern Linux-desktops for that matter) is directed by the .desktop files (under: /usr/share/applications/ or for a single user under ~/.local/share/applications/) For more on that see: http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/. Another good guide on using the .desktop file to change the behaviour is http://themagicofscience.blogspot.com/2011/05/unity-adding-items-to-dock.html (inclidung further references)

As standard setting, wine creates e.g. for Picasa (in my case in a file "~/.local/share/applications/wine-Programme-Picasa 3-Picasa 3.desktop") the command

Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/[user]/.wine" wine C:\\\\windows\\\\command\\\\start.exe /Unix /home/aj/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Startmenü/Program Files/Picasa\\ 3/Picasa\\ 3.lnk

that has as a result that all wine-apps appear under a single icon in the launcher. To change this behaviour you have to create a new .desktop file for picasa or change the existing one so that wine directly launches the application's executable.

so the command should be (don't ask me, why ~ or %USERNAME% don't work here)

Exec=wine "/home/[user]/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Google/Picasa3/Picasa3.exe"

To create the link and the accompaning icons I followed the rather complicated guide under the bug report "Unable to add Wine applications to Unity launcher"

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/704187/comments/3 whole report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/704187/

But with the aforementionedguides you might even create the .desktop file yourself or at least adapt it to your needs once you have the correct basic setting.

Added benefit for this is that you see the application icon in the launcher (not just wine) AND can pin the wine app to the launcher.

HTH Andreas

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."